Stress Fractures and Scratches

[tschafer]

Finished racking my Brown ale to my secondary from my 6.5 gal glass carboy.

After cleaning with oxyclean, using my carboy cleaner 'wand' (the metal rod with blue paddles), then sanitized it.

I noticed quite a few stress fractures around the neck which looks like scratches for the carboy cleaner rod. [attached photo]

I'm concerned here.

Is this a fairly common issue?

Or do i have to go to the LBS and get another carboy?

 

[TNGabe]

Hard to tell from the pic, it's hard to take a picture of glass! I think that's normal. One of my big glass carboys looks like that. I always keep it in a milk crate with foam and never pick it up by the neck when it's full.

 

[day_trippr]

Are you saying a carboy cleaner of some kind did that? If so I'd never, ever use it again.

As it is, I'd be really leery about using that carboy without it being in a milk crate like TNGabe suggested. It doesn't take hardly any kind of scratch in a high-stress section of glass for it to separate, so picking that one up by the neck should be a solid no-no forever...

Cheers!

 

[pwkblue]

it happens...but is usually just oxidation from the wire of the carboy cleaner transferred to the glass....it will come off with a oxyclean or pbw soak.....or just brushing with the carboy cleaner....or even your fingers and a soft rag reaching into the neck

 

[mpcluever]

It looks like scratches/oxidation from the brush. I'd be surprised if it somehow fractured in a line all the way around the neck. I'd try to verify if they're really fractures.

 

[day_trippr]

I don't believe that's a crack line. Heck, it might not even be a scratch line, it's hard to tell - though unless proven otherwise, that's what I'd assume...

Cheers!

 

[tschafer]

Oh its not a crack line. But they are scratches. I can touch them with my fingers. They are like surface scratches, but deep enough that i'm worried about bacteria.

That ring around the neck i believe was caused by the metal rod for the carboy cleaner metal rod rotation around when in was cleaning the carboy. But there are quite a few stress fractures below that right.

I clean like a MAD man, but I'm wondering if anyone else has a 'carboy cleaner' (the metal rod with blue cloth pads you attached to a drill) has this same ring around the neck. If so, what did you do?

 

[processhead]

If it is only a surface scratch, it would probably take something like thermal stress or impact with a hard object right on the scratch line to cause it to actually crack.

Milk crates are your cheapest insurance for handling carboys.

 

[mpcluever]

My understanding with scratches in glass is that for the most part, cleaners and sanitizers will go all the way down the crack and kill anything in there. Plastic is a different story with the lips of the crack folding back over and trapping things underneath. I bet you're just fine.

I'd still get a milk crate!

 

[thejimirvine]

Hi There,
I've got the exact same thing on the necks of 2 of my carboys so this is interesting reading. I've never had sanitation issues but am worried about the strength of the carboys, would hate to have the neck come off in my hands while moving them around. I like the milk crate ideas!
Thanks for the info all!

 

[Pratzie]

Get a few milk crates or brew hauler for moving the carboys. even if its nothing, those are a much safer way to move glass carboys around anyway.