5 gallon glass carboys-OLD ones

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splat

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I just bought 3 5 gallon glass carboys at a garage sale for 6 bucks a piece. Planning on using them for brewing. But they look old, and are blue/green glass...Could these be worth more money being antiques??? Some have old water bottle lables on them...I was thinking about selling them, and buying new brew stuff with the money... Any thoughts?
 
i dont know about antique value, but they work well as fermentors. I have an old 5 gallon glass bottle myself the date is always printed on the bottom mine is from 1930 i think. what does your say?
 
k1v1116 said:
i dont know about antique value, but they work well as fermentors. I have an old 5 gallon glass bottle myself the date is always printed on the bottom mine is from 1930 i think. what does your say?

Im not sure what they say on the bottom... But I dont like the idea of using 5 gallon carboys for primarys.... I use 5 gallon BBs as secondarys... Just thought If I could sell these for 40-50 bucks a piece I could use that money to buy other stuff.
 
splat said:
Im not sure what they say on the bottom... But I dont like the idea of using 5 gallon carboys for primarys.... I use 5 gallon BBs as secondarys... Just thought If I could sell these for 40-50 bucks a piece I could use that money to buy other stuff.

I think it's a good idea to sell them....there's no telling the age/brittleness of the glass, they could be stronger than the new glass ones or the could break on your first use....I've read too many tales on here and other sites about busted carboys and things like tendon damage...or at the least lost beer....Go for the better bottles.
 
They're probably better quality than the imported ones available now.
 
ma2brew said:
They're probably better quality than the imported ones available now.

That was my first thought....but doesn't glass get more and more brittle with age?

My gf just had a bunch of really old, thick glass drinking glasses start to break.
 
oh yeah I would never use it as a primary for beer, there great for mead which doesn't usually foam much. this link shows one just like what i have http://cgi.ebay.com/5-Gallon-Antique-Green-Glass-Bottle-circa-1929_W0QQitemZ360042307120QQihZ023QQcategoryZ14QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247
I dont know exactly what yours looks like but I would try looking around ebay and on google for similar items for sale and see what people are asking. If you can decipher the info on the bottom you maybe able to find an exact match.
 
I have a clear glass carboy with 1923 marked on the bottom. It looks similar to the one on the ebay link. I've used it for primary and secondary. I really like it. I like using old stuff like that though. Makes it special for me, wondering what other beers or ciders or what not have been brewed in it. Hell it made it through prohibition :)

I've been gifted all 4 of my glass carboys. I'd buy better bottles if I ever needed to buy any, but I can't justify buying new better bottles when I have perfectly fine carboys to use.

One thing to keep in mind is that glass is somewhere between a liquid and a solid. The molecular structure is not uniform, and some people claim the shape of glass will change over long periods of time.
 
Use them. Don't let these people that are anti-carboy fool you. Nothing beats glass as a fermenter. And as said earlier they are probably better than what you can get today.
 
I say use em as well. 5 gallons isn't enough for a primary, but you can use for clearing beer or making cider, apfelwein or mead in em.
 
I have a 5g from 1938 that is in regular rotation, and an unmarked one that I would wager is older by the irregularities in the shape of the glass. Both came from retired wine makers and have done me no wrong so far.
 
Use it. I happened to stumble onto a similar blue glass carboy in a local online classified for $3 myself. It doesn't have a year, but I also think mine is old due to the irregularities and bubbles in the glass. Deal of the year. I have a batch of cider bubbling in it right now.
 
One thing to keep in mind is that glass is somewhere between a liquid and a solid. The molecular structure is not uniform, and some people claim the shape of glass will change over long periods of time.


No need to claim, just go look at an old church's stained glass windows. Notice how they are much thicker at the bottom than the top. This is due to the glass "flowing" down over many MANY years.

And I agree, clean them well but use then. Glass is the defacto standard in pharmaceuticals/industry for a reason. It lasts and lasts, is resistant to virtually everything (acid/base/organic) except a diamond. :)
 
I was going to report on my little garage sale find (2 glass carboys for $16) and then came across that link above....apparently the rules are as follows: no stairs, must wear jeans with shoes, welding gloves as well, and clear the dog away! Yikes!
 
One of my LHBS doesn't even carry better bottles because he says they just cause infection and you cant clean them. Apparantly cleaning with a scrubbing brush is the only way to clean something.

I'll stick to the other LHBS by me.
 
I keep promising to look up that coating product we get on our laboratory glassware that prevents injury in case of breaks (think car windshields). I'm sure someone has to sell it as a separate product. Give me another week or so and I'll get my act together! I still prefer glass exclusively for being non-reactive and resistant to pretty much all scratching, but I agree there is added risk and the potential for some really serious injuries.

I've always heard there is a convention for everything...now I believe it:

http://www.iccg6.de/

EDIT #2:

This looks like what we want but I have no clue on price:

http://dipseal.com/index.html
 
I'd say use them, unless you're fairly sure you can get a pretty penny off them.


No need to claim, just go look at an old church's stained glass windows. Notice how they are much thicker at the bottom than the top. This is due to the glass "flowing" down over many MANY years.

Actually the cathedral glass theory is flawed. If glass really did "melt" as some people claim to happen with old panes of glass, then by that logic lenses in antique telescopes and obsidian tools would not stay as they were when they were created. Old glass panes are thicker on the bottom because of the method used to create the panes of glass, known as the Crown Glass process. Glass was blown into a ball which was flattened and spun into a disk, which would naturally cause it to be thicker where most of the glob stayed and thinner out towards the edges where centripetal forces pulled. These disks were then cut into panes and installed. Logic states that the thicker edge should be installed downward for more support.
 
I'd say use them, unless you're fairly sure you can get a pretty penny off them.




Actually the cathedral glass theory is flawed. If glass really did "melt" as some people claim to happen with old panes of glass, then by that logic lenses in antique telescopes and obsidian tools would not stay as they were when they were created. Old glass panes are thicker on the bottom because of the method used to create the panes of glass, known as the Crown Glass process. Glass was blown into a ball which was flattened and spun into a disk, which would naturally cause it to be thicker where most of the glob stayed and thinner out towards the edges where centripetal forces pulled. These disks were then cut into panes and installed. Logic states that the thicker edge should be installed downward for more support.

Very interesting. I've never heard that explaination but it definitely makes sense (just checked the wiki on glass for some nice reading). I'd be interested to see where the myth originated that I told. Probably someone that didn't know how the glass was originally made, and just deduced that it had flowed over time.
 
oh yeah I would never use it as a primary for beer, there great for mead which doesn't usually foam much. this link shows one just like what i have http://cgi.ebay.com/5-Gallon-Antique-Green-Glass-Bottle-circa-1929_W0QQitemZ360042307120QQihZ023QQcategoryZ14QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247
I dont know exactly what yours looks like but I would try looking around ebay and on google for similar items for sale and see what people are asking. If you can decipher the info on the bottom you maybe able to find an exact match.

if you pay that much for an old piece of glass you should be shot.
 
Most chemical bottles come with a protective coating that is basically a plastic covering them that also doubles as a UV blocker to prevent fungus and other nasties from growing in bottles. I have dropped these and nothing more then a crack and no mess. It is some kind of poly coat they use.
 
Most chemical bottles come with a protective coating that is basically a plastic covering them that also doubles as a UV blocker to prevent fungus and other nasties from growing in bottles. I have dropped these and nothing more then a crack and no mess. It is some kind of poly coat they use.

Yeah, I work in a lab and we have several of these (several of our 4L vacuum flasks). Unfortunately they are all coated at the factory the glassware is purchased from. I'm looking for a paint or spray on liquid that would harden after application. It doesn't have to be bulletproof, just something that if I were to drop it (or more often just bumping it while holding it), it wouldn't shoot out deadly pieces. The biggest issue for me is its need to be clear, as the whole purpose of getting the glass in the first place (along with resistance to cleaning) was to see what is going on inside. PVC is a common coat that I'm assuming is not clear (dunno if the white and black I've seen it in is due to coloration).
 
This may be something to look into. You can buy a gallon for 29 bucks. I think that would easily cover 2-3 carboys.

Or this.

I'll have to look into the first link more (since they offer many different types of coating), but that second link is a no go. That stuff will do absolutely nothing in the case of a rupture. What I want is something the consistency of the red plastic they coat the top of a Maker's Mark whiskey bottle with. It is VERY durable stuff that would definitely protect against a break. Now, it just needs to be clear and we are all set.
 
For 6 bucks i would use them

I think glass is better.
Only broke two this year though
Dropped one on concrete
and dog knocked over another one.

Plastic is like having sex with a condom.
It works but seems something is missing
 
That was my first thought....but doesn't glass get more and more brittle with age?

Nope

No need to claim, just go look at an old church's stained glass windows. Notice how they are much thicker at the bottom than the top. This is due to the glass "flowing" down over many MANY years.

Actually, that's a myth. The thickness variation in historical glass was an artifact of the manufacturing process, not due to room-temperature flow. The RT flow rate of glass is sufficiently slow that you can essentially assume it doesn't flow at all.

Ask yourself this question: If 300 year-old glass is so much thicker at the bottom, why aren't Egyptian glass artifacts (3,000 years+) puddles yet?

Here are a few links for reference:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15821344.300-thats-another-myth-shattered.html
http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/Glass/glass.html
http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/windowpane.html
 
Nope



Actually, that's a myth. The thickness variation in historical glass was an artifact of the manufacturing process, not due to room-temperature flow. The RT flow rate of glass is sufficiently slow that you can essentially assume it doesn't flow at all.

Ask yourself this question: If 300 year-old glass is so much thicker at the bottom, why aren't Egyptian glass artifacts (3,000 years+) puddles yet?

Here are a few links for reference:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15821344.300-thats-another-myth-shattered.html
http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/Glass/glass.html
http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/windowpane.html

See about 10 posts back. :p
 
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