Plastic Carboy Problem

Well, apparently adding hot wort to a plastic carboy is not advisable.

As can be seen, it seems to have been warped.

Now, I have no problem buying another carboy(im switching to glass), but this incident has begged me to ask two questions:
1. Are you not supposed to add the wort to your carboy when it is hot?

and

2. Will the warping of the plastic have released any chemicals into the wort which would affect the quality of my beer? I do not want to drink anything that tastes like plastic, however the wort for this beer tasted great. It would be a tremendous shame if I had to dump.

You're not supposed to put anything into the PET carboy that's above 140F... IF you don't have a way to chill your wort down, you need to use sanitary ice (use a sanitized container/ziplock bag to free filtered water in, and put just the ice into the pot), or add damned cold water to the wort until it's under 140F before you pour it into the carboy. It's also advisable to have cold water in the carboy before you add the warm wort to it. That will help cool it down faster, and help act as a buffer... I believe glass carboy's have a slightly higher tolerance. Still, I wouldn't pour any hot wort into either.

If you're doing full batch boils, or close to it, then get yourself a wort chiller. Or make one if you're handy...

I use a home made IC to chill my wort down below 70F before I put it into primary. Even if I'm going into stainless...

yeah, I probably should have read up on PET carboys before I went and did that.

Now, my question is, is my wort ruined?

Don't know if the wort is ruined or not... Don't know if anything bad gets released when the PET gets up to that temp... Will take someone else (or more research on your end) to give that answer...

I will say, using wort chillers makes this a zero event...

You shouldn't do that to glass, either. I know from experience: it's a great teacher.

i have a feeling that your problem was a bit messier than mine, passedpawn

I know one red-line temp is 140F and the other is 160F. Can't recall, exactly which is which... Doesn't really matter on my end since I'm using a chiller and have my wort ~70F (or lower) before I pour into primary...

i am doing some googling, and I found one other noob who made the same mistake I did. on that site, there was a link to another forum, however, you need to be a member to see somebodies reassurance and I am waiting for the email.

I can't find too much information. I don't think that anything too harmful would be released, but I am by no means an expert.

i just saw the response to the other thread, it read:


"Better Bottles are BPA free. Though they are made of PET (a phthalate) they are harmless."

heres a link to the first convo I read.

http://community.livejournal.com/homebrewing/587203.html

passedpawn said:

You shouldn't do that to glass, either. I know from experience: it's a great teacher.

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Yeah, melted better bottle is preferable to a shattered glass carboy.

Just did this exact same thing making mead.... feel like the dumbest lol...

I hope it turns our well in the melted bottle!

Experience is a harsh teacher.....

tims5377 said:

Just did this exact same thing making mead.... feel like the dumbest lol...

I hope it turns our well in the melted bottle!

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Why were you heating mead? although I have never made one I thought you were not supposed to heat it?

mattd2 said:

Why were you heating mead? although I have never made one I thought you were not supposed to heat it?

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Agreed, also interested in the answer. I thought you could just use raw honey and water. Is that not how it's done in practice?

I am clearly a novice, but from what i gather you heat it to sanitize it and blend the flavors. For this recipe i boiled 10 lbs honey with some water ,saaz hops, then blueberrys. Then i melted my carboy and let my yeast sit too long in the confusion i created. Lol. Dont do it how i did. I am gonna pitch the yeast tomorrow when i can get more. The mead forum on here has great info with people who are (clearly) alot better at this than me lol

mattd2 said:

Why were you heating mead? although I have never made one I thought you were not supposed to heat it?

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I dont think your supposed too, or atleast in most cases. I never did for any of mine....just dump everything in and pop an airlock on it..thats the beauty of meads...they take 15 minutes to finish. Then 1 year to become drinkable

FuzzeWuzze said:

I dont think your supposed too, or atleast in most cases. I never did for any of mine....just dump everything in and pop an airlock on it..thats the beauty of meads...they take 15 minutes to finish. Then 1 year to become drinkable

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All of charlie papazians recipes call for boiling. I guess it is 'new school' to not boil.

tims5377 said:

All of charlie papazians recipes call for boiling. I guess it is 'new school' to not boil.

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Your right, just checked. Seems like it is just a quick boil to remove proteins. From my work with a honey producer they always wanted the time at high temps kept to a minimum to minimise the damage to the honey flavours. But that was for eating it not drinking it!

mattd2 said:

Your right, just checked. Seems like it is just a quick boil to remove proteins. From my work with a honey producer they always wanted the time at high temps kept to a minimum to minimise the damage to the honey flavours. But that was for eating it not drinking it!

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The same still applies, boiling time should be minimized. From what i gather if any thing like hops or fruits are going to be boiled in the mead, they should be boiled in just water (just like you would making beer) and then the honey should be added and brought to temperature.