Friends don't let friends brew drunk!

Funny that this thread popped up again almost three years later. I DID end up breaking a thermometer in one of my batches, and I DID dump the entire thing as soon as it happened. Well, after I finished swearing. And it was a big beer too. But it was the entire thermometer exploding into it, not just glass. It was worth it for the peace of mind, and the replacement batch has long since been drunk and sent back to the ocean.

First things first:
What the hell are you people doing cooking with anything glass? It is completely unnecessary to take these chances when there are so many thermometers made that will not break into your food. I am sure I will get some Schit for this, but that is just plain stupid.
Second: glass particles that small will not float. Please don't be so dramatic.
Third: If you are using a glass thermometer old enogh to contain mercury you deserve what you get.

bought a digital thermometer with a timer, equipped with a stainless steel probe and never looked back. i prefer coffee when i brew anyways.

northernlad said:

First things first:
What the hell are you people doing cooking with anything glass? It is completely unnecessary to take these chances when there are so many thermometers made that will not break into your food. I am sure I will get some Schit for this, but that is just plain stupid.
Second: glass particles that small will not float. Please don't be so dramatic.
Third: If you are using a glass thermometer old enogh to contain mercury you deserve what you get.

Click to expand...

I totally agree. This happened years ago, when I was still relatively new. The thermometer floated, which was supposed to be a perk, I guess. It was the thermometer they were selling at the brew shop, so at the time I just assumed it was okay for whatever I did.

The incident occurred when I left the thermometer hanging off the side of the brew pot, and it got super heated from the flames coming over the side. As soon as I tried to put it back into the pot, it exploded on container with the wort. When I was going to buy another one, I thought, why the hell am I brewing with a glass tube floating in my wort? Stupid!

I ended up buying a 30qt boiler pot that came with one of those long metal-stemmed thermometers. Haven't looked back since. So yes, I would definitely recommend ditching the glass. They're a pain to use and dangerous.

I ended up fairly tipsy on Teach a Friend to Homebrew day this year. Made a basic American Wheat recipe... that I'm not real hopeful for... kinda yellow in the carboy, but nearly clear (like water) in glasses....

I haven't brewed drunk. But I have bottled & transferred drunk. That was a really bad idea and will never do it again. During the process I:

1. Forgot to put the priming sugar in the bucket. Luckily I remembered right before I started bottling and got it in on time. So that wasn't a big problem, but just a sign of how absent minded I was being.

2. Dropped a dirty, nasty piece of plastic into the bottling bucket full of beer. Plastic came out of the bucket cleaner than when it went in....

3. Used my bare hands to retrieve said piece of plastic, rather than using a sanitized utensil.

4. Probably spilled about 1.5 bottles of beer on the floor during the bottling process.

5. When I was done bottling, I transferred my porter from primary to secondary. I put some coffee into the secondary and didn't think "hey, there's gonna be less room in the carboy now". So I overflowed the carboy and probably got a bottle or two worth of beer all over the floor.

The whole kitchen was a disaster area. I'm limiting myself to one beer whilst doing anything beer related now.