Epic fail

Had a beautiful brew day. Hit an 80% efficiency on my Heff (60% last year). Beautiful starter...it even smells like a heff. Beautiful wort. Dropped my carboy in the garage just after I transferred the wort. I haven't cried since 2005, but I've been on the verge of it for the last 30 minutes.......;(

I know it hurts, I'm sorry for your loss. But if you didn't get injured consider yourself very lucky!

Haa i think its funny that you actually know when you last cried..Good stuff. I feel your pain though, i hope i keep gripping my carboy with all my love every time. I dont know if i will cry but i shure will be heartbroken.Much empathy.
With the wort? Fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff...

I almost did the exact same thing last Saturday... but was able to hold on to it in the last slip. Followed by my brew partner standing up from of his chair and clapping, stating "Nice save". Heartbroken for both your losses.

Yeah it could've been alot worse. I didn't get injured. It didn't happen in the living room on my wife's carpet. So yeah it could've been worse...

sorry for your loss. Any reason for dropping it? Were you using a crate, brew hauler, or just grabbing it by the neck?

Hey man, Im not trying to be a dick but if it was with the wort its kinda like having an ABORTION.... OH. MAN i did say that?

An abortion would be purposely dumping the wort down the drain. This was a miscarriage.

Newton said:

An abortion would be purposely dumping the wort down the drain. This was a miscarriage.

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Well put sir......well put

Sorry for your loss. Thankfully, YOU are ok and will live to brew another day (hopefully soon)

I protect my glass carboys using those square milk crates. They have good sturdy handles that never slip and also provide shock resistance, concrete floor protection, and even human protection if the glass unexpectedly breaks. I got a few those old glass water bottles for carboys for dirt cheap and the milk crates are...ahem...free.

1st: I am very sorry for your loss.

2nd: I am very glad you/someone else was not hurt.


I never understand why people heft these things around, especially when they are full. The site is filled with "dropped carboy" stories and threads. There is no reason to ever heft one around full. In this case, it would have been wiser to use a sanitized bucket and a sanitized carboy funnel to transfer the wort to were the carboy sits.

did your carboy have a handle? if not, i would suggest you get one for every carboy you own.

sorry about your misfortune. i will keep you in my prayers.

Dogphish said:

did your carboy have a handle? if not, i would suggest you get one for every carboy you own.

sorry about your misfortune. i will keep you in my prayers.

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I don't recommend carrying the full carboy by the handle, they aren't meant for that amount of weight. Put them in a milkcrate.

I did the same thing last fall, except I dropped it in my basement. Spent the entire afternoon cleaning sticky wort.

Your beer died for our freedom. And for that I salute you.

i always break my carboys before i fill them with wort so i have to scramble to find some replacement fermenter.

or when they are full of oxyclean.

Wow, that is just flat-out terrible! It almost made me sick to read it!
Still, thankfully it didn't happen after fermentation was complete and you were getting ready to bottle or keg it.
-Miscarriage... man thats just, well, WRONG! (but very accurately stated).

Sorry man. Sucks to lose a batch. Happened to me once (leaky keg post for a finished lager that I had put months into) and I'm still not over it.

Dogphish said:

did your carboy have a handle? if not, i would suggest you get one for every carboy you own.

sorry about your misfortune. i will keep you in my prayers.

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onthekeg said:

I don't recommend carrying the full carboy by the handle, they aren't meant for that amount of weight. Put them in a milkcrate.

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Never, ever carry a full carboy by the handle- the neck isn't strong enough. The milk crates sound like a decent idea. I use Brew Haulers

Two words! Plas-tic! LOL sorry for your loss!

Milk crates! Once I started using them I never went back. They're also great for 2 person carries.

I read this thread yesterday, and thought to myself, "gee, that stinks. It really is important to be careful."

Then this morning, I woke up to my girlfriend saying "uh, I think something happened to your beer..." Last night while putting a cardboard box over the ale pail (I usually do this with my carboy to keep it in the dark. With the pail it's just to save space) the box caught on the valve at the bottom and half-opened it. The whole 5.5 gallons had slowly drained out onto the floor during the night. Scratch one blonde ale (my first time ever pitching with washed yeast, and first time using whole-leaf hops), and one area rug. And now I know exactly how you feel, OP.