Brewing disaster

I am making my second beer as I type but I am pretty sure this one might be ruined. The first step was to steep the grains at ~170 for 30 mins. I put my "true brew" floating thermometer in the kettle and brought up the temp. the thermometer was floating normally and all was well for a while, but then I went to look at the temp and noticed the bottom of the thermometer has broken and all the "shot" in the bottom as well as some of the red wax had spilled into my wort. The mercury tube did not bust, just the exterior tube. I am not sure what to do so I am going ahead with the brew as normal and planning to run it through a fine mesh filter as i put it into the carboy in order to remove any "shot". As far as I can tell this is not lead shot, but I cannot identify.

What would you do?

I would dump it and invest in a digital thermometer.

Brew your beer and ferment it as regular. The stuff will settle out in the bottom with the trub.
There has been lots of stuff like this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/what-some-mistakes-you-made-where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

Your beer should be fine

Pieces of glass in your beer are nothing to mess with, in my opinion. If you missed the tiniest piece, if it somehow ended up in your bottle or keg, someone ends up in the emergency room. I'd toss it.

Sorry for this, it is very frustrating, I'm sure.

RDWHAHB. It should be steel shot and will settle. You will waste a little wort when you rack. I'm more afraid of glass shards then steel shot so keep the racking cane a couple inches off the bottom. Glass is much lighter then shot and might rest within the trub. Don't suck up any trub and you will be fine.

If I had a $1 for how many times I've read and heard this about glass thermometers. I've had one break as well. I put a fine mesh grain bag over racking cane and drank every bit of it.

But seriously go out and pick up either one of those turkey thermometers or a digital one. I have both and use them both. I picked up my digital one for $15 at walmart it has a dishwasher safe probe and it coated with ruber either black or red. I've not only accidently submerged the probe I had the entire thing fall into boiling kettle. Still works.

Plus one on using a paint strainer bag as a sieve and soldiering on. No glass will make it through the bag. They don't use lead in food thermometers. Not in many lab thermos either. Much much more likely it is steel.

dontman said:

Plus one on using a paint strainer bag as a sieve and soldiering on. No glass will make it through the bag. They don't use lead in food thermometers. Not in many lab thermos either. Much much more likely it is steel.

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+1,000

Don't toss the brew, a paint strainer and a primary fermentation will ensure that no particles are left in your brew. Let's us know how it turns out.