The Worst Thing. Ever.

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oberon567

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
263
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7
Location
Cambridge, MA
I had the worst experience with my beer today. I lost an entire 5 gallon batch of beer. Not because I was unsanitary and it was infected. Not that I fermented too hot and had undrinkable esthers. Not that I made a horrible recipe that tasted ungodly.

After racking to a secondary, to add fresh orange zest I dropped my carboy.

It shattered, flooding my kitchen and hallway with delicious smelling beer, and covering my kitchen and bare feet with shards of glass.

I considered asking for a grievance day at work tomorrow, during which I would rebrew it. I dont think my boss would comprehend the enormity of the loss.

:(
 
Holy crap! That sucks.

Hopefully you are OK-- no flesh wounds or anything?

I'll raise a pint in remembrance.
 
i have maybe a half dozen cuts on my feet and fingers. My room mate has 3 cuts. but no splinters, and just papercut depth cuts.

it could have been a lot worse. The $$$ and more importantly the beer are the real losses here.

the beer smelled SO GOOD too!

I have made a lot of mediocre brews in the past, with fermentation temperature and yeast pitching temp being my biggest culprits, on top of muddled, indecisive combination of flavors. This was my first brew that actually remedied a lot of those things, and my first batch that I was really careful about temperatures on.

Luckily, I have the yeast cake, I never had the chance to clean it or wash it. So it is sitting in the fermenting bucket with the airlock back on at fermentation temp. I am going to rebrew on Monday, and just rack right onto the yeast cake.
 
Sorry for your loss. Welcome to the Better Bottle club.
 
Just consider yourself lucky you didn't need to take a trip to the hospital. I have scene some nasty pics of carboy accidents.
 
Wow, you dodged a real bullet. Shattering that much glass could have caused some serious injury- and that's why I love my BBs.
 
Sorry to hear that. Sure sounds like a great loss, but thankfully you didn't get any serious injuries. For that same reason I use better bottles. I'm such a clumsy person, I just couldn't take the risk. Sure hope you re compensate for the loss in the very near future.
 
Damn. There is a thread around here somewhere, shows the pics of a member with a huge gash iirc. Stitches and all.
 
brew_hauler.jpg


These are less than $10 at my LHBS.

The only thing stopping me from Better Bottles is that I don't want to scratch them with a brush... Also, can I use PBW in them? I have a lot of it.
 
The only thing stopping me from Better Bottles is that I don't want to scratch them with a brush... Also, can I use PBW in them? I have a lot of it.

No need to brush. The plastic is slick so even dried krausen doesn't stay stuck for long if you fill with OxyClean and hot water and let 'er sit. Just make sure you rinse off the Oxy :) I'm sure PBW would do the trick just fine
 

These are less than $10 at my LHBS.

Those belts are how i broke my second carboy (i bought a belt after breaking the first) ... i carefully lifted a full carboy with one and it just burst thru the side strap and broke ... converted to better bottles and my back feels a lot better too.
 
Sorry for your loss man!

No kidding - that's why I made the little dolly to move mine.

Yeah...I only carry mine around in milk crates.
I asked my garbage man if he ever sees any get tossed to grab me some and now I've dozens. So I use them to carry carboys and also stack a couple up and it works well for the carboy to sit while fermenting/clearing etc.
I did buy one better bottle though so far...I like it (have Apfelwein in it currently) but I don't care for how they flex.
 
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