Your worst brewing related injury

I've burnt my fingers on hot kettle handles before but this one takes the cake.

Borrowed a friend's counterflow chiller rig for a 10 gallon batch. There are two valves, one to backflush and the other to engage the water to cool. Asked another friend which valve to open and I opened the wrong one. Near boiling wort and hops right into my face.

First degree burns to my face and a doctor's visit.

What is your worst injury?

mine wasn't nearly that bad, but it was also a burn. large brew gathering. i was in the back of the garage (1st person to get rolling). i finished in record time and the garage was like a hive full of worker bees and 5 or so kettles going. I needed to chill my wort, which meant dragging a hose past EVERYBODY'S feet.

So, trying to be "safer", I picked up my kettle and tried to carry it outside. It started swinging and touched my right calf. I jerked it back the other way in pain, and REALLY burned my left calf.

This was about 2 days after I did it. It turned very maroon in color and cracked like hard baked clay.

still have a scar.

Dropping a 6.5 gallon carboy full of water, in the kitchen, without shoes on. Many many scrapes and puncture wounds. The kitchen looked like a shark attack with all the blood and water.

That one deserved a Dr. visit as well.

Besides the kettle burns, the hangover in the morning from brewing late at night.

Decapitated a bottle while capping it and the top inch or so of the bottle fell pointy side into my palm and left a nice puncture wound. Thankfully didn't need stitches as the bone stopped it from doing too much damage.

Minor burns from touching the kettle or stove. Minor cuts.

It's a lot harder to injure yourself using a lot of plastic buckets and corneys as fermenters.

At the last SEWAGE brewday Short Drive asked me to help lift his keggle onto a table. ******* that I am I grabbed it at the bottom. This was right after flameout. It is kinda freaky hearing your own fingers sizzle............

My wallet has suffered several severe concusions. The last one put it in a coma for years ago and now my wife is threatening to pull it off life support.

5 stitches, 2 xrays = $4800 bill to health ins.
Yes it almost went thur my hand ,bottle bursted while capping.

Houblon said:

5 stitches, 2 xrays = $4800 bill to health ins.
Yes it almost went thur my hand ,bottle bursted while capping.

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HOLY HELL THAT LOOKS BAD.

I got a 6 inch burn on my forearm lifting the lid off boiling wort that was in too big of a pot causing immediate steam burns. Hurt like a b*tch.

Walker said:

mine wasn't nearly that bad, but it was also a burn. large brew gathering. i was in the back of the garage (1st person to get rolling). i finished in record time and the garage was like a hive full of worker bees and 5 or so kettles going. I needed to chill my wort, which meant dragging a hose past EVERYBODY'S feet.

So, trying to be "safer", I picked up my kettle and tried to carry it outside. It started swinging and touched my right calf. I jerked it back the other way in pain, and REALLY burned my left calf.

This was about 2 days after I did it. It turned very maroon in color and cracked like hard baked clay.

still have a scar.

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I swear you could have taken that picture and story from me. It was my first brewday, and I never carry the hot kettle more than a couple feet now.

Worst injury while brewing? Only my pride. Still stings sometimes.

Once I nearly severed my little finger while cleaning an old 13 gallon carboy. A buddy and I were holding it on the edge of the sink and it cracked and broke. Iodophur all over, cut up legs, and finger cut to the bone, scar doesn't look that bad cause it's pretty old.

Another time I seared my fingers like a steak. Pic with flesh browned is just a minute or so after, white blisters are an hour or so after. Hurt like hell.

Houblon said:

5 stitches, 2 xrays = $4800 bill to health ins.
Yes it almost went thur my hand ,bottle bursted while capping.

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I have NEVER seriously considered kegging...until now. D&%@ that looks bad - hope you're OK now.

Does one's liver count as a brewing related injury?

I narrowly escaped one today.

I put a bottle in the freezer to test to see how it was coming along and of course forgot about it. I pulled it out and set it on the counter and went to get a plastic bag to contain the inevitable explosion. RIGHT as I set it down it exploded EVERYWHERE, possibly including into the vanilla ice cream SWMBO was making for Thanksgiving (and I got reassigned to bathroom cleaning duty...).

Thank god it wasn't in my hand, I can only imagine how terrible it would be if the shards were driven directly into it.

so far, just burning skin white, but heals

Sometimes when I dip my hands into the star San for extended periods of time it starts to dry out my skin. Usually I just get gross looking old man hands, other times it cracks a bit and starts to sting. Ouchie!!

I walked into a door after finishing off a keg to make room for more brew to go in it.

electric_beer said:

HOLY HELL THAT LOOKS BAD.
.

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I had to stop taking pics to tie a rope around my wrist as it started to spray

It looked like a set of bloody lips


What did I learn from that, bottles get weakened over time and need to be thrownout after so many uses. I now trash bottles after 3 batchs.

Those all look painful!

My worst brewing injury was a steam burn on my forearm. It was a second-degree burn, about 2-3 inches in diameter.

The beer earned a new name--Purgatorio Schwarzbier

i will have to second the glass carboy story: and no shoes!
was cleaning glass carboy, tried picking up when full of sanitizer, dropped and fell onto patio floor! two deep puncture to left foot and cuts on both feet!
moral of this: always wear shoes, get plastic better bottles or be VERY cafefull when handling glass carboys! now i use a dolly to transport and never move w/full of sanitizer-slipery! and i try to use a pad under them when emptying to lay it on!
scott

Was making my very first batch........ Wanted to get every last bit of LME out of the plastic tub I had it in so I put in a ladle of boiling water, put on the lid and attempted to shake it up. It immediately exploded.

If I ever go pro I want to incorporate the scar into my logo.
Kinda looks like a dog on one side and a demonic looking face on the other

Walker said:

mine wasn't nearly that bad, but it was also a burn. large brew gathering. i was in the back of the garage (1st person to get rolling). i finished in record time and the garage was like a hive full of worker bees and 5 or so kettles going. I needed to chill my wort, which meant dragging a hose past EVERYBODY'S feet.

So, trying to be "safer", I picked up my kettle and tried to carry it outside. It started swinging and touched my right calf. I jerked it back the other way in pain, and REALLY burned my left calf.

This was about 2 days after I did it. It turned very maroon in color and cracked like hard baked clay.

still have a scar.

Click to expand...

New personal best, if it qualifies. I was working on some brewery equipment, but not actually brewing.

I got 10 stitches on my left thumb from a bottle bomb. I still have to go back for a surgery to fix the cut ligament.

Holy hell this is a scary thread. I don't know why anyone would still use glass carboy's. I use plastic fermenters, it's what I started with and am glad for it after reading some other stories in another thread.

I just started bottling with glass bottles last weekend and after reading this thread I think I'll pickup a pair of those uber tough work gloves so I can where one on my left hand (bracing hand) while using my bench capper. I'll also heed the advice not to reuse the bottles too many times. I too always felt glass weakens over many uses so I would really like to avoid breaking bottles.

When I was a kid I was into science and chemistry and one time I was trying to force a glass tube through a rubber stopper. Of course being the stubborn ass at the time I didn't listen to my mother's suggestion to boil the stopper to make it easier. The tube broke, plunged deep into my index finger and broke off inside! They stitched it up and a few weeks later glass crystals were poking through the skin. Had to have microsurgery to remove the glass and repair the tendons. As a result I have a bundle of scarred nerves so if I press a certain spot on my finger the pain is unbearable.

So... since then I'm really reeeeally cautious about glass. Maybe I should've stuck with PET bottles lol.


Rev.

So far I have been lucky and no burns or cuts but I did hurt my low back pretty bad when brewing a imperial stout with a 21# grain bill. I was trying to lift the mash tun full of grain and 8 gallons of water to the counter top. I learned I need a little help when brewing a beer like that.

Reading the glass carboy posts makes me glad that I use plastic buckets. I have glass carboys but never use them. One time I cut myself pretty badly on a plastic bucket lit. Just a flesh wound, though.

I've had several close calls, many similar to those posted here.

I've stopped drinking beer during brewing. (OK, one pint's the limit). One too many beers while handling gallons of scalding water isn't a good mix.

This is a good thread to read through for those like me who are relatively new to the hobby. I can't think of anything significant yet thank goodness, but a few brew sessions ago when the SWMBO was out of town, I started drinking earlier than normal and it was a 9 hour brewday. I don't recall much from the finishing of the second of two batches, and this involved carrying two glass carboys from the garage, up steps and into the back bedroom. The next morning I praised jesus that everything went ok, and promptly made a carboy carrier from a dolly and milk crate.

Holy ****! You guys are making me not want to brew anymore...

Hannable1975 said:

I have NEVER seriously considered kegging...until now. D&%@ that looks bad - hope you're OK now.

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Ditto! I was hesitant to start kegging... that is one giant push towards kegging!

Houblon, were you using a bench capper or wing capper?

Backed into my turkey fryer after knockout. Burn on the back of my calf. Two weeks ago. Still scabbed over and painful.

Personally I have only had the normal burns that everyone will get if they brew a lot. A couple blisters, not really a big deal.

However, I'm taking a 400 level beer course at my university. My TA said he was shaking a glass carboy, attempting to sanatize it. It slipped out of his hand it slammed on a rock. A piece of the carboy cut his wrist and he almost died from loss of blood. Now, he can't feel his left hand anymore.

It seems like most people's injuries (at least the more serious ones) come from glass related incidents..

I juggle 3 glass carboys before using them for fermenting, nothing yet.


_

yup. I've had no issues with glass at all in the past 13 or 14 years of brewing.

My latest injury is from a drill and a thin rectangular piece of stainless steel that seized to the bit during the drilling. Instant 4-pointed sawblade in my hands.

JLW said:

So far I have been lucky and no burns or cuts but I did hurt my low back pretty bad when brewing a imperial stout with a 21# grain bill. I was trying to lift the mash tun full of grain and 8 gallons of water to the counter top. I learned I need a little help when brewing a beer like that.

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Try 36lb grain bill with 45qts of strike!
Lol... thank god my buddy stopped by to help w that!!

Rev2010 said:

Holy hell this is a scary thread. I don't know why anyone would still use glass carboy's. I use plastic fermenters, it's what I started with and am glad for it after reading some other stories in another thread.
Rev.

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I have a barleywine conditioning for 2 years and there is no way I would ever use anything BUT glass for that. Also, anytime I dry hop I use a carboy to free up my primary buckets.

Also, I don't like to live in a bubble. People who are so afraid of normal equipment never get the joy of its use. (also, this applies to life in general) I work with radioactivity all day, but that doesn't mean I am happy to be in harm's way. Its called respect of danger. I know that glass can be lethal, but I also know how to handle it and treat it with respect. I am confident that I won't kill or maim myself with carboys, and especially not with 12oz glass bottles.

Don't you think propane is dangerous? What about water at 212F? You just feel more comfortable handling it.

Nothing too bad, although I was starting a siphon before I had my autosiphon, and got a mouthful of boiling hot water.

NuclearRich said:

I have a barleywine conditioning for 2 years and there is no way I would ever use anything BUT glass for that.

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Good point.

NuclearRich said:

Don't you think propane is dangerous? What about water at 212F? You just feel more comfortable handling it.

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Of course there are always dangerous aspects to homebrewing. But one can minimize the dangers involved in avoiding items that are more prone to personal harm.


Rev.

Rev2010 said:

Good point.



Of course there are always dangerous aspects to homebrewing. But one can minimize the dangers involved in avoiding items that are more prone to personal harm.


Rev.

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You can minimize the dangers of bacteria by living in a negative pressure HEPA filtered bubble, but you won't get to enjoy life the same way. If there weren't appropriate uses for glass carboys and bottles, they wouldnt be manufactured because they wouldn't sell. Its actually a little less extreme than what I'm implying, and more like in a grayish zone where it doesn't really matter too much if you use those products, as there are acceptable replacements for the most part, and appropriate for the majority.