Hydrometer broke in my carboy! Is my beer ruined?!!

[devins]

Hi all,

So about a month ago I was brewing and my hydrometer slipped out of my hands and into the carboy. I attempted to recover it, but with the narrow neck of the carboy it was pretty difficult. I figured "screw it, I basically know the initial gravity, I'll just get it back when I empty the carboy."

Well that day was today and I transferred my batch, but my hydrometer came back in two pieces. The weight had cracked off the rest of the tube. I don't know when this happened, but it seems to have been relatively early in the fermentation since there were some sediment deposits inside the hydrometer tube. I quickly looked up what is inside a hydrometer and found that they tend to contain lead.

Is my beer contaminated with lead?! (I took a magnet to it and it seemed to be very slightly magnetic, so I'm hoping it's steel) Help!

Thanks, and Happy Father's Day!

 

[Demon]

Personally I'd dump it. Not because of the lead, but because of the tiny particles of glass.

 

[tekkydave]

I'd be more worried about little bits of glass than a contaminated batch. When I broke my hydrometer, it broke into 5 trillion little pieces. Not worth worrying about in my opinion. Dump the batch and brew another.

 

[SledgeH]

Several of them are made from iron. The paper on the inside usually says what type of metal it is. After 1 month the glass should be at the bottom of the fermenter. I'd take a nylon hop bag, throw it on the end of you racking tube and filter this stuff. I'd also chalk up the bottom 1/2 gallon as a loss and not try to salvage every last drop.

 

[JonM]

Poison, bird sh*t, and broken glass are the three things that would cause me to dump a batch. Not worth it to keep it.

 

[Conan]

There was a thread sort-of recently about a busted thermometer in the boil kettle, and the poster was worried about lead/ glass contamination. My response then was to not worry about it, and I'll say the same here. Glass is more dense than beer, so any shards will be in the trub. Since you noticed the break must've occurred early on in fermentation, that means any shards will be under/ in a layer of trub. Rack off into secondary (if you use one) or whatever you usually do and just watch you don't suck a large quantity of trub up. That'll assure you don't get glass shards in the final product. As for lead, well, that's up to you. Again I personally don't worry about it. I'm curious why the hydro broke from just floating around in a carboy, unless it snapped when the carboy was moved. Kyle
Disclaimer: this is just one man's macho opinion and is not to be considered health advice. If you drink lead-water and get sick, not my fault.

 

[dwarven_stout]

Where did you hear that hydrometers typically contain lead? Mine has iron balls sealed in wax. I have a hard time imagining that in this day and age regulations allow a company to make a piece of food equipment that contains lead.

 

[devins]

Hi all,

Thanks for the speedy responses!

It seems the gallery here is rather mixed on what to do. I am going to go with keeping it since I'm not too worried about the glass issue. I was able to recover most all of the hydrometer and the rest was almost surely at the bottom which as suggested I left a good amount of beer behind when syphoning off. I also ran it through a filter so there will be no large pieces of glass.

The more I think about it the more I think they probably wouldn't allow lead in hydrometers any more so I'm going to go for it and I'll update when I do, (if I'm not poisoned to death! ). Hopefully this isn't just me being a stubborn jackass and not wanting to start again.

Just since someone asked, I think I got the idea that hydrometers contained lead from wiki (mercury or lead) and it makes since that they would because both those metals are very dense.

Oh and yes, I suspect the hydrometer probably broke while I was moving the carboy as I brew outside and then had to carry it down to my basement.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[BrianBrewer]

So I had a hydrometer that was tilting after I put it in post aeration. So I let it go through a primary and secondary. I smelled very metallic. Prior to kegging I tasted a sample and it had the remnants of liking a muffler. I vomited in the driveway.

 

[Hello]

So I had a hydrometer that was tilting after I put it in post aeration. So I let it go through a primary and secondary. I smelled very metallic. Prior to kegging I tasted a sample and it had the remnants of liking a muffler. I vomited in the driveway.

Keepin' it alive man!

 

[chickypad]

Not just necromancing with a first post, but assaulting a muffler in the driveway too. What's the world coming to.

 

[ChefRex]

So I had a hydrometer that was tilting after I put it in post aeration. So I let it go through a primary and secondary. I smelled very metallic. Prior to kegging I tasted a sample and it had the remnants of liking a muffler. I vomited in the driveway.

Awesome first post! Thanks for your valuable contribution, and I look forward to so many more.

Cheers,

 

[unionrdr]

I broke a floating thermometer in the BK during an ice bath once. It was going through the fine mesh strainer into the FV anyway, so It got strained out.

 

[Trox]

Hi all,

Thanks for the speedy responses!

It seems the gallery here is rather mixed on what to do. I am going to go with keeping it since I'm not too worried about the glass issue. I was able to recover most all of the hydrometer and the rest was almost surely at the bottom which as suggested I left a good amount of beer behind when syphoning off. I also ran it through a filter so there will be no large pieces of glass.

The more I think about it the more I think they probably wouldn't allow lead in hydrometers any more so I'm going to go for it and I'll update when I do, (if I'm not poisoned to death! ). Hopefully this isn't just me being a stubborn jackass and not wanting to start again.

Just since someone asked, I think I got the idea that hydrometers contained lead from wiki (mercury or lead) and it makes since that they would because both those metals are very dense.

Oh and yes, I suspect the hydrometer probably broke while I was moving the carboy as I brew outside and then had to carry it down to my basement.

Thanks again everyone!

Since the OP hasn't updated us since this post I guess that batch did poison him. RIP OP