Carboy brewing disaster averted, I think...

Last night I eBIAB brewed my favorite style, a Saison. After transferring the chilled wort into my 6 gallon Better Bottle carboy, as I carried it to the chest freezer after the O2 and Yeast additions, I noticed a heavy drip coming from the carboy bottom. The drip turned into a steady stream as I walked--clearly the carboy was leaking and getting worse by the second. I gently sat the carboy down, ran to my brew room, grabbed a clean but not sanitized bottling bucket (7 gal), and really quickly poured the wort into the bucket. The whole event took less than a minute from discovery to the wort being in the bucket, and I lost somewhere less than 0.25 gallons or so, so not too bad.

It is now visibly easy to see the Better Bottle carboy has hairline cracks almost completely around the circumference of the raised section on the bottom. I believe that carboy was about to catastrophically fail, not just drip! While the bucket was not sanitized, it was clean, and I did just dump 360B yeast cells...pretty sure it will not be infected, but there could always be a first time for everything.

The Better Bottle carboy was only 2.5 years old, used maybe 15-20 times. I always cleaned it with PBW and sanitized with Bleach or Star San. Anyone else have such a failure happen with a plastic fermenter? I am starting to think about a SS Brewing Brew Bucket or similar to replace the carboy.

No one else EVER had a plastic carboy fail like this?

Sounds like a good save! I don't have any input regarding plastic carboys since I use glass at the moment, but have you considered fermenting in corny kegs? Lots of advantages over glass and plastic; won't break and shatter, rubber handles for carrying, easy to clean and sanitize, narrow footprint in fermentation chamber means more batches, CO2 transfers, and no light exposure just to name a few. I'm transitioning to fermenting with kegs as I like the peace of mind of not dealing with glass anymore.

Do you rock your Better-Bottles directly on their bottoms to swirl the wort around? I read on Better-Bottle's website that doing that can lead to the formation of hairline cracks due to the repeated stresses on the plastic that rocking can cause. They recommend using a tennis ball placed directly under it in order to swirl the wort. I've been doing the tennis ball thing on all my Better-Bottles since I've had them. I got them in 2006 and have many dozens of batches with no cracks as of yet.

I found the page on Better-Bottle's website that I was referring to.



Swirling the contents of a BetterBottle carboy vigorously requires almost no effort, if a tennis ball is placed in the punt space under the carboy. Do not tilt the carboy by so much that the edge of the carboy's base touches the surface (see Important Note). And perform the swirling on a smooth or soft surface for good measure. Leave extra head space during initial mixing and aeration to maximize agitation. Tune your swirling motion for the desired effect; very hard swirling may result in less efficient mixing than more gentle swirling.

Important Note: Never rock or swirl BetterBottle carboys without using a tennis ball. Doing so will cause the edges of the bottom of the carboy to repeatedly crease and flex, causing a great deal of stress in the PET that may eventually cause cracks, like bending a paper clip back and forth.

johnsma22 said:

Do you rock your Better-Bottles directly on their bottoms to swirl the wort around? I read on Better-Bottle's website that doing that can lead to the formation of hairline cracks due to the repeated stresses on the plastic that rocking can cause. They recommend using a tennis ball placed directly under it in order to swirl the wort. I've been doing the tennis ball thing on all my Better-Bottles since I've had them. I got them in 2006 and have many dozens of batches with no cracks as of yet.

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I aerate with pure O2, so no swirling.

stealthfixr said:

I always cleaned it with PBW and sanitized with Bleach or Star San. Anyone else have such a failure happen with a plastic fermenter? I am starting to think about a SS Brewing Brew Bucket or similar to replace the carboy.

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Do you soak it for an extended period of time in PBW or use a high concentration? This has been know to be problematical causing crazing and hairline cracks. There are directions on the better bottle site indicating PBW can be problamatic and how to best decrease the odds of damage due to PBW.