How do you lift your carboy out of your chest freezer?

I'm thinking of getting into lagering... but every time I think of buying a chest freezer I think of the impending disaster of either hurting my back or shattering a carboy lifting it in and out of the freezer...

How do you get around this?

Better Bottles.

If you're not storing for long enough for the yeast to die off (6+ months) then there's no problem with using plastic.

You may still have problems lifting the 50ish pounds of a full carboy, but there's not really a lot to do about that.

With a plastic carboy (such as a better bottle) + one of these bad boys, it's pretty easy. The hauler gives you two handles that make the job a breeze.

I scored about a dozen of the tall plastic milk-crate like things that bottle water is delivered in. They were sitting in a pile of junk on the curb down the block from my house. They are designed to fit a carboy perfectly. I don;t even take the carboys out to clean them - the whole shebang gets cleaned and sanitized. I've heard too many stories of carboys breaking because of a gentle bump during cleaning. As my brewing increases (hopefully) I'll add to my collection with Better Bottles, but these thing do the trick for me for now. The built in handles are designed to allow your hands to clear the bottle and make for some relatively easy moving.

+1 the hauler or milk crates! Both work great for carboy transport!

Just be aware that not all, "milk crates" are the same. Get the industrial standard and not the decorative ones sold in big box stores.

I know a lot of you are going to hate this but, I use neck handles. Been looking for something else but haven't found anything I like. I need to be able to pick them up and carry them with one hand.

id think using a strap underneath may give you better grip and if you hug it to yourself it should be safe. liking the milk carton idea tho as long as its a strong one like gammon sed

I just use my throat-crushing deathgrip and lift it out using both muscle and pure brawn.

uechikid said:

I know a lot of you are going to hate this but, I use neck handles. Been looking for something else but haven't found anything I like. I need to be able to pick them up and carry them with one hand.

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I don't know what you're going to use to do that...lifting a full carboy by a handle will rip the neck off...

I've been using milk crates since 1994.

Even with the milk crate/hauler/etc... isn't it a pretty tough angle to lift it out? Do any of you with bad backs have techniques you use?

i only lift when a friend's present.

and i climb in my freezer to get it out, lol

If your back is bad, I suppose you could get some cable, hook it to the sides of a milk crate, and rig up a pully system to lift it out. Slip a table underneath of it, lower it back down, then just grab it and carry it off.

Or you could just use an upright freezer. That's probably easier

mightynintendo said:

I just use my throat-crushing deathgrip and lift it out using both muscle and pure brawn.

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*swoon*

With my bare/bear hands. (insert bear growling noise here)

homebrewer_99 said:

I don't know what you're going to use to do that...lifting a full carboy by a handle will rip the neck off...

I've been using milk crates since 1994.

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I've heard that. I've been brewing for the same length of time and so far I've been lucky not to break one that way.

I've got a bad back, and there is no way I'm going to lift full carboys into and out of a chest cooler. I have one in storage, but I'm going to build a ferm chamber instead. I'm going to have two doors in the ferm chamber. They both should let me wheel them right on in. I set my carboys in a milk crate, and set the milk crate on a plant base with casters. I found a few cheap at a bi-mart or something one time. They look like this:



It also keeps the trub or yeast cake more settled when I can wheel it over a flat surface instead of picking it up and carrying it.

I empty before I remove...Push with CO2 to the next carboy or keg.

Kilted Brewer said:

I empty before I remove...Push with CO2 to the next carboy or keg.

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How do you push w/ CO2 out of a carboy?

Ketchepillar said:

How do you push w/ CO2 out of a carboy?

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With one of these.

http://morebeer.com/view_product/16657/102269/Rubber_Carboy_Hood_w_White_Caps5_Gallon

Yep. Racking cane in one end, co2 on the other. About 2psi will do it.

A well placed grunt and some muscle (but really...it's only 50 pounds). It also helps that I'm 6'4 so it's not like it's difficult to reach in there for me.

I have had a carboy shatter on me once...Clearly I haven't learned my lesson.

uechikid said:

I know a lot of you are going to hate this but, I use neck handles. Been looking for something else but haven't found anything I like. I need to be able to pick them up and carry them with one hand.

Click to expand...

uechikid said:

I've heard that. I've been brewing for the same length of time and so far I've been lucky not to break one that way.

Click to expand...

Here's hoping your luck continues. The package on the handles even says not to lift a full carboy by the handle alone.


I just bend over and bear it. Not like it's something I'm doing very often. I only brew 1-2 times a month. And then seldom use the chest freezer. I have an upright fridge in the garage I usually use for ferm temp control.

Really really old thread, but do those carboy hoods fit on a better bottle?