Existing thermometer

So I had a cheap floating thermometer break in my cooled wort, it didn't contain mercury, all the little bb weights dropped to the bottom. All glass was recovered. All wort will be siphoned and ran through a fine mesh strainer.

Question: would you keep it or chunk it, and why?

I would keep it, and just leave an extra amount of beer behind when you rack to the keg/bottling bucket. The glass should fall out of suspension pretty fast, and the yeast cake should cover up the glass. I'd wait for confirmation from some one else as well though, as I'm not sure what else is in the thermometers, other than alcohol and probably red dye.

Any other thoughts?

There are several older threads out there that cover this issue as well, if you haven't read through them already. This one, for example, goes on for 4 pages:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=68283

Seeing as how you used a fine mesh screen, you have minimized risk. Additionally, it looks like floating thermometers are also always foodsafe too. Here's another thread where several people said the same thing happened to them and all turned out fine (Check the second post)
http://discussions.realbeer.com/archive/index.php/t-22401.html

JosephN said:

Any other thoughts?

Click to expand...

The National League really should adopt the Designated Hitter, FFS...

Cheers! (oh yeah - about your beer: don't overthink it, just drink it )