Do these look like cracks?

I think my 5 gallon carboy is cracking. What do you think? These are slightly rough to the touch and I don't remember them being there before. I just moved 5 gallons of pale ale into it so hopefully it holds until I free up a keg.



by the way, I let my wife taste the gravity test.... "wow that's good" Can't wait to start drinking this.

It's hard to tell from photos of course, but those look like scratches to me. Cracks in glass tend to form in very different patterns in glass - more spider-webby, not a whole bunch of small parallel lines. And the fact that they're rough to the touch reinforces my hypothesis.

Move your head around, look at it from different angles; if the light distortion doesn't go all the way through the glass, they are scratches.

I really don't know, but what about stress fractures, maybe from carrying it by the neck when full?

I had the exact same thing happen to me with a carboy from Midwest Supply, they exchanged it for a BetterBottle.

Here's a pic of mine.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/no-more-glass-me-pic-103596/

I want say I've got them in almost all of mine. I would say it's where the glass buckled from not being able to cleanly follow the bend in the neck during fabrication.

I keep my carboys in milk crates at all times...even when washing them. They take up a little more room but I dont have to worry about killing myself from a broken carboy.

HellBentBrewCo said:

I think my 5 gallon carboy is cracking. What do you think? These are slightly rough to the touch and I don't remember them being there before. I just moved 5 gallons of pale ale into it so hopefully it holds until I free up a keg.



by the way, I let my wife taste the gravity test.... "wow that's good" Can't wait to start drinking this.

Click to expand...

They look like stress cracks. I don't know if you use a Carboy neck handle or not, but I've always been worried about those stressing the neck.

When you clean it, do you use really hot water?