Glass thermometer broke in wort.

My glass floating thermometer broke in my wort as it was cooling. It is not mercury and the balls are iron so I'm not worried about that. The iron balls floated to the bottom of the kettle so I don't think any got into the fermenter.

But what about the glass? I very stupidly wasn't paying attention to see if there was any glass with the iron balls. I already pitched in my fermenter, so I wasted my yeast if I dump. But, obviously, I want to be safe. I plan on transferring to a secondary and then bottling bucket, so it seems likely that whatever's in the primary will stay there.

I hate these POS thermometers - this is the second one I bought that broke!

Anyway, what should I do?

Buy a beer filter and run it through a fine filter.

I know that anytime I break a bottle neck popping off the cap a little too vigorously, I just go ahead and pour the whole thing out as sad as it is sometimes. If you take the following for fact, you would have to have to use a partical/maybe micron filter to ensure the glass was gone. I hate to say it, but I would probably dump it.

Take this for what it's worth... It's source is this: Glass shards? - Yahoo! Answers

"You need to go to a doctor pronto. Glass shards can be extremely hazardous.

Unlike a thorn, which is forced out of your body by the natural processes (such as by forming a sore which weakens the skin, then the pus forces the object out of your skin), glass works oftentimes in the opposite manner.

What hapens is that if they are microscopic or small enough to not see with your eyes, the shards can work their way deeper into your skin. Glass does not present the same foreign intrusion signals to your body's detection system, because it is glass. Therefore, two things occur, but not absolutely: a) the shards can work deeper, and b) the body will then try to heal itself around the shards. And that causes a third problem c) it is possible but not guaranteed that the tiny glass shards can work their way into a blood vessel and float in your blood to cause more problems elsewhere.

I say possible, because I do not have any knowledge of this ever happening as a skin penetration, and you do not say what part of your body this injury happened to. But I do know that glass shards ingested through the mouth can do just that, and that has been documented in cases such as in car crashes.
"

I'd bottle it. Maybe hold the tube an extra inch off the bottom while racking. What are the odds that A)You'd actually suck up a piece of glass, or B)It would harm you if you did? I've seen freaks at the bar eat glass to show how tough they are. (I found it a better test of stupidity).

Id leave quite a bit at the bottom and just take a 20% loss.

Blah! This sucks.

Just talking this out a bit - it seems like if I rack carefully, the chance anything that would get into my bottles would have to be pretty tiny. I mean, I'm racking twice, plus it'd have to get through the bottling wand. Right?

How can they sell these things without some kind of warning label? You would think it would be a liability.

Just make sure you mark this batch as "With Shards". Of course now you'll have to break your friends into "Would give glass shards" and "Wouldn't give glass shards" groupings. That's a chore on its own. I'd start with your mother in law and people who have lent you money...those are easy.

kyleobie said:

Blah! This sucks.

Just talking this out a bit - it seems like if I rack carefully, the chance anything that would get into my bottles would have to be pretty tiny. I mean, I'm racking twice, plus it'd have to get through the bottling wand. Right?

How can they sell these things without some kind of warning label? You would think it would be a liability.

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For the same reason that they don't sell knives with warning labels saying "don't stab people in the eye with this knife!" It's pretty much a given. Glass is breakable.

In any case, either you can do like I did and spend a bunch of cash on multiple sh*tty thermometers over time, or you can just spend a little more $$ now on a great thermocouple. It's your choice.:cross:

Evan! said:

For the same reason that they don't sell knives with warning labels saying "don't stab people in the eye with this knife!" It's pretty much a given. Glass is breakable.

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Ha. Good point.

Yeah, a digital thermometer's high on my shopping list now.

At any rate, I am leaning towards dumping this. I am interested to see its FG as it's my second PM.

Is it really worth $40 worth of ingredients? I would be too scared to drink that.

Wade E said:

Id leave quite a bit at the bottom and just take a 20% loss.

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+1 here. I would feel OK with that but knowing that this is the one that has the glass.

I'd throw it out, personally. Even a tiny chance is still a chance, and the ER copay alone would be more than the ingredients you've lost.

Yeah, it's getting tossed.