HELP! I broke a thermometer in my beer pot!

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nate0075

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OK here's the scoop. Im an idiot and put a cold thermometer (the red floating ones you can find at any LHBS) into a still too hot pot of just boiled wort. I had my copper wort chiller running at the time. The pot's aluminum and if the thermometer uses mercury, which Im sure it does, its now in the pot. Aluminum is porous and would absorb the mercury making it dangerous for future batches, and of course the current one. But what about my wort chiller, should I toss it too? I dont want to make my friends and family crazy from the mercury poisoning. What should I do?
 
Holy ****, this has to be the brewers worst nightmare. I feel for you man.
 
I'm not sure its mercury in your thermometer some use alcohol so you might wanna check be for you toss the pot. It was discussed at one time a few months ago on here ya might wanna search it. And i just looked it at the bootem under similar threads.
 
If you purchased that thermometer within the last 10 years it is most likely an alcohol thermometer. They dont really sell the mercury ones anymore, can you remember what color the fluid inside it was? For future runs I recommend getting a $10 digital thermometer from the grocery store in the kitchen ware dept, they are amazing and give instant results.
 
Yeah, I haven't seen a mercury thermometer in many years. Since mercury is so dangerous, they were taken off the market years ago. My floating thermometer has a red fluid in it, and it's alcohol and red dye.

The worst thing would be some glass shards in the wort. So, dump the wort and clean everything else up and you'll be fine.
 
Thanks ladies and gents, I did look at those previous articles and I feel better about not being the only shmo to do this!
 
If you suck up everything but the bottom inch, no mercury or glass will get into it. Toss it if you want to, but it seems pretty wasteful...
 
I second this, was it mercury or alcohol??

On mercury thermometers, the "level", that moves up and down, is silver.

On alcohol ones, it's red.

Was your line silver or red?

Also, a little mercury WON'T kill you, as much as you've been led to believe. My parents used to handle the stuff in high school.....literally passing a pool of it from person to person, unprotected. I'd pitch the beer, but I don't know if I'd stress over the pot.....heat the pot up without water in it maybe, (if it's mercury), which should vaporize all the mercury in it?
 
Also, a little mercury WON'T kill you, as much as you've been led to believe.

If I ever get mercury in my beer, you can have it.

That being said, I'd wager this is not a mercury thermometer. As for the glass, when you rack it from the brew pot to the fermenter, strain it through a coffee filter. If it makes you feel better, use a coffee filter again when going from primary to secondary or bottling bucket.

As for my floating thermometer, it rolled off and hit the sidewalk one brew day. Best thing that could have happened to it.
 
They do make Green Line thermometers and hydrometers, the green solution inside them is completely edible. You would still have to strain the glass out though.
 
Really? I'd be very interested in learning more about this. Do you sell them?

They are touted as environmentally friendly and technologically improved.

They use steel not lead shot, and the fluid is food grade, edible, non-toxic and biodegradable.

We do carry the hydrometer and thermometer.
 
I was tasked at work 2 years ago with finding a mercury thermometer. It was a bear to find one. Had to get it from a scientific company and it came with all kinds of warning paperwork. Its highly unlikely you ended up with one without knowing.
 
Last week a local elementary school teacher dropped a small mercury thermometer in a classroom.
They evacuated the whole school and called in a Haz Mat team from a town almost 4 hours away at a cost of over $8000.

I remember when I was a kid we used to play with the mercury in the science lab, we used to even roll the little blobs around in our palms. Maybe that explains why I turned out like I did :D
 
LOL I just read all these responses so since this was an ordinary floating brew thermometer with red dye (as found in your friendly neighborhood brew store - shout out to All Seasons in Nashville), I figured I would let everyone know what my decision on this batch was. I did toss the beer and was very bummed for the rest of the weekend. It was a nut brown recipe I was hoping would be just right around the time of Thanksgiving. I ended up getting a new stainless pot which I wanted to begin with.

Just a side note, I took my "contaminated" pot to the recycling center with DO NOT USE. TAINTED BY MERCURY Sharpied on the side of it.

I was saving lives...
 
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