Cracked carboy

So, I have found a good 3 inch crack in my carboy about 5 days into primary fermentation. It looks like a surface crack, but worries me nonetheless. Should I just take the hit of potentially being off on my FG and get it into my secondary?

texbrewer said:

So, I have found a good 3 inch crack in my carboy about 5 days into primary fermentation. It looks like a surface crack, but worries me nonetheless. Should I just take the hit of potentially being off on my FG and get it into my secondary?

Click to expand...

Probably.

Glass carboy, I'm assuming? 6.5 gal or 5 gal? Not that it really matters.

What type of beer? Ale or lager? Ales take a lot less time, so a 5 day ferment for an ale would be a lot better than for a lager.

Before you do anything else, duck tape the everliving crap out of that thing, so if it does crack on you, it won't slice you to ribbons.

Good luck. We're all counting on you.

If it were me, I would ride it out. Let fermentation finish and transfer to a secondary as soon as it's complete. I would be half tempted to put duct tape around it. I wouldn't move it an inch though...

I'd mark both ends of the crack using a sharpie and keep checking daily to see whether the crack is growing. If it's growing, I'd be scared to move or lift the carboy if it's full of liquid. 5gal of wort is basically 40+ lbs. That, plus the stress of bear-hugging the thing to lift it high enough to siphon to secondary, might be enough to ruin your day. And by "ruin your day", I mean severely slice your arm skin.

If the crack isn't growing it'd be very slightly less scared. But only slightly. Either way, I'd definitely duct tape the thing before moving it.

Good luck.

Brings to mind the threads of glass vs Better Bottle vs bucket. I think I'll stick with my BB's. I like my appendages the way they are and I hate pain. I'm also not getting any younger and the thought of lifting full glass carboys...... I may someday try a bucket but I like to see the fermentation.

+1 for taping the bejeebers out of the carboy before moving it a millimeter.

If it were me I would let primary fermentation complete then I would transfer it to another carboy and get rid of the cracked carboy. Taping it sounds good but disturb the cracked carboy as little as possible because it could shatter.

put super glue on the ends of the crack...it will prevent it from cracking further....I then would put duct tape on it...Good luck