Big Mouth Bubblers are dangerously thin

@Jbpiv that looks absolutely terrifying. It is good that you are on the mend and hopefully there is no permanent damage.

With regards to suing, it's starting to look like it is a good idea. I'm never one to jump on the side of lawsuits, but this goes well beyond loss of product. I do wonder if Midwest and NB would somehow say that they sell the bubbler hauler as a precautionary measure or some wacky thing like that. I'm sure their legal team would find a number of ways to spin it, but in the end, I think a civil suit may knock them down just a bit. If anything, force them to get rid of the product entirely. I would also make sure that the subject of their v2 bubbler is brought into play here. If a company has to push out a second version of a project advertising thicker glass, does this imply that they figured out the glass was too thin in the first place?

For people injured, it's no longer just about losing a batch of beer or a fermenter, it's come down to obvious pain and in some cases long term irreparable damage. Brewing beer should not be a high risk hobby, but these fermenters definitely put it in that class. I saw the broken carboy thread before I bought my first kit and vowed to not use glass because I was afraid.

Early on I questioned the validity of claims that reviews with 3 stars or below weren't published since a 3-star review of mine on another product was published. However, I've since published another 3-star review of something quite trivial, intentionally, and it was not published. I don't care to call them on it because they'll likely have a seemingly clever answer and the review still won't hit their site. I'm now convinced that they do moderate and censor poor reviews. Someone mentioned this being one of the very few products not sold on Amazon and I believe the theory is correct, Amazon won't shield poor reviews and therefore, this could be a **** show for Midwest / NB.

Rev2010 said:

I disagree. When I spend my personal time writing up a review to help my fellow home brewers shopping for a particular item and see it never posted because it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns it really annoys me. NB sells the Monster Mill as well, so why give such a crap that I gave the barley crusher 3 stars?? I want my personal time back if they're not going to use my review and that is something they can't give me back. I can completely understand inappropriate reviews but none of mine are inappropriate. To add to this, it makes my own personal shopping experience more involved since I can't trust their reviews and have to spend more time Googling for the whole truth.


Rev.

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Absolutely! Culling negative or not so glorious reviews is dishonest and skews the perspective of prospective customers. Basically they're creating a trap. Knowingly selling defective equipment that injures and maims people is a punishable crime.

This is not a case of company bashing.

While on topic, I wonder why there's no safety screen supplied with grain mills. Or at least a warning on the unit and/or hopper regarding the danger looming below.

I'm with IslandLizard on this. I don't think this thread is one that bashes the businesses. There have been a few bashing threads before, but this isn't one of them. This is a civil discussion by people who have serious misgivings about a product with significant quality and safety issues. And by one individual who was seriously injured. Covering up those dangers can be a trap to an unwary buyer, and I think as a community we have an obligation to discuss this.

The vendors, in filtering the negative posts, are not doing a service to their customers. It becomes like the Potemkin Village, where only the positive aspects are shown in order to skew opinion to the favorable side. We are not stupid. We see through this. All it takes is a quick Google search for "glass Big Mouth Bubbler" and many questionable discussions (including this thread) will show up.

The only logical reason I can think of to filter negative reviews is for a defense to a potential products liability claim. A vendor being on notice that a product can or does cause harm can give an injured plaintiff a stronger argument. In a case of negligence and liability for harm, one of the elements to bring a successful action is to show that the defendant had "foreseeability." In other words, the vendor was on notice that the product has dangers that arise from the product's intended use. Even so, by not posting doesn't mean the review wasn't received by the vendor. They were "on notice," whether they published the review or not.

It's a double-edged sword: Do you inform the public and risk becoming a lightning rod for litigation? Or not tell the public and stand by as more people get hurt?

There are some products that are simply too hazardous to sell to consumers. We've seen some in the past: Jarts, electric hotdog cookers, the Miniboggan, Ford Pinto, etc. Serious thought needs to be given as to whether the glass BMB should be kept on the market.

IslandLizard said:

I wonder why there's no safety screen supplied with grain mills. Or at least a warning on the unit and/or hopper regarding the danger looming below.

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My Barley Crusher has a bright red sticker that cautions to "Keep Hands Away From Mill When Operating" or something to that effect. I assumed they all had such a warning.

kombat said:

My Barley Crusher has a bright red sticker that cautions to "Keep Hands Away From Mill When Operating" or something to that effect. I assumed they all had such a warning.

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But related.

Most mills I've seen do not have such a warning. Monster Mills don't. It is very possible an unwary child (or distracted, absentminded adult) may stick his or her hand in there. The first time I saw a clear warning was on EZCyclone's home built mill. Somewhere else I saw the piece of wide mesh screen, a few inches above the rollers. So simple.

Here's their reply all (still reading it myself at the moment):

James (Northern Brewer)

Mar 19, 10:01

Hey Peter, thanks for the email. It's always nice when people go the extra mile to bring important issues to our attention and seek out a little more personal response! It really does show a lot of care and for that we are quite grateful. Its great feedback that helps us ensure we are offering the best service we can!

TL;DR - Not every review ends up being accepted for posting but for many reasons beyond what number of stars it had. Our system does not allow for reviews to be edited by the submitter, so instead we are trying an innovative approach to reviews where customer service actively seeks out unsatisfied customers to try and help and we have plans for a new interactive moderation system that allows for an accurate, real time information feed between users, new customers, and customer service. Our goal is providing only the highest quality, awesome homebrew products to enable brewers to safely make the best beer possible.

Quite sorry to hear about the negative thread going on homebrew talk. We kind of wish there were positive threads going on since there are many big mouth bubbler users that are really happy with the product. We brought the exact same V1 to NHC a few years ago now and the response was incredible, people basically insisted we make the item available for sale. We keep track of all reported issues on products and everything else that goes into sending products all over the country, and according to what we've received, there are homebreweries across the country happily fermenting away in V1 big mouth bubblers. Of course, hearing about any defectively thin or unnoticed shipping damaged carboys breaking are a sad event that we wish would not occur. Its interesting the things that are recommended for safe use of glass fermentors, many come with stickers pleading things like wear safety goggles and gloves that cover your wrists, don't pour any liquid out only siphon, don't set down on any hard surface, don't put any warm or hot liquid in them. Things that I have done and every other brewer has as well and sometimes glass carboys of any design will break for seemingly no reason during use or simply sitting in the ferm room, so proper handling and checking the glass items over thoroughly before and during every use is key. Some people are surprised to learn that large glass items can break and so I like to recommend plastic just for that reason. But what the brewer wants we can provide.

Because we are brewers ourselves, we take safety very seriously. I still use a 5 gallon V1 to this day, its my go to for dry hopping, and there are many others still doing the same, but it is important to practice caution. When we hear about any breakage, we all take it personally, as well as record it in detail for quality control, packaging, production, anything we can influence to help make sure only the best products are being sent out. In this case, we listened to feedback, as well as some of our own ideas, and switched manufacturers specifically intending it to be a thicker(and much heavier) version to ensure any mishandling, shipping damage, production issue or anything else resulting in a fermentor that gives yeast a safe place to produce some awesome suds. Our customers pay us for a reliable fermentor, and if for any reason that is not the case, like UPS throwing a package around Ace Ventura style, we are here to help and only want safe and happy brewers. Making the best beer possible, it is your right after all.

As for reviews, they come in and need to be checked to ensure they are civil, free of swear words, and accurately represent the product. We are happy to take everyone's feedback and review of products but some are not accepted and posted for one reason or another. The feedback is still valuable and any reviews not posted gets passed to us here in customer service to reach out to the customer and clear up any issues and offer what we can do to help make sure they are satisfied with the product, and if not, hook them up with full refunds or a product that will do what they want. It would usually be low reviews but I've also seen plenty of 5 star reviews not posted because it was inaccurate or used profanity or was just too long and detailed to be a workable review. Some people like to send their whole brew notes for a beer kit review, and while it is nice to see people taking notes, we see a number of those not get posted.

My job is to help those people in whatever way we can, and I'm not sure about the specific criteria for reviews. This was our attempt to handle reviews in an innovative fashion, and hopefully deliver a better experience for customers. It was not our intent to hide issues or concerns. And of course we want to work hard to make the customer experience as awesome as possible and so are working on new ways to handle reviews. Hopefully the new system will be more interactive and help customers share their review of the product while getting feedback in real time. Basically we can rely on a third party to remove posts that use profanity, and allow us to comment on reviews that we think need an asterisk and I think reviewers will be able to go back and edit their own reviews if things change, and hopefully many other awesome features. The feedback we get is always awesome, I'm always impressed with the passion and care it shows to share it, hopefully it can help us to offer the best service possible.

Oh, there was a reddit post from our sister company Midwest Supplies about a similar issue, you might find that interesting as well : http://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/2c53y4/i_emailed_midwest_about_issues_with_their_glass/

Let us know if we can help further!

Cheers,
James J.

Btw, here's my Barley Crusher review, copied and pasted from my review history, but never posted on their site. Not sure what part of my reviews fails to meet their criteria

"I've had mine for 3 years now and it's been mostly great. I get a consistent 81% efficiency often times higher. However, I've had a few times where it refused to pull grain. Got it working by stopping and using my mash spoon to jam the grains down in, but that isn't working anymore. Yesterday I had to crush two cups of grain at a time. If I filled any more it wouldn't grab the grain. Made sure both rollers moved freely, widened the gap just to try to help the issue, but nothing. Someone told me the knurls have worn down which is likely the problem.

Some other issues I've had with it:

The orientation of the roller base and hopper are a bit off center and make it a little unstable sitting on top an empty bucket. I've had it tip over once when the drill was attached and I was filling the hopper, grain all over the floor. The biggest pain I'd say though is adjusting the gap. I always tighten the gap for wheat and since there are no markings it's all by eye or feeler gauges. If you don't adjust both rollers to exact spacing the second roller will bind and get stuck. Also, being a combination or steel, aluminum, and pressboard, it's not all that easy to clean.

I'm now looking at the Captain Crush. "

And for the record I went with the Monster Mill and am VERY happy with it.


Rev.

MaxStout said:

It's a double-edged sword: Do you inform the public and risk becoming a lightning rod for litigation? Or not tell the public and stand by as more people get hurt?

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My viewpoint on this one is that if you inform the public that these are thin and unusually prone to breakage the company actually protects itself. By censoring honest reviews of the product to only shine a positive light you are not only failing to inform end users of danger, but also some questionable if not entirely illegal business practises.

On the topic of business practises, I agree that no company should be able to censor legit reviews. If a reviewer is clearly out for vengeance, or typingaRIDICULOUSfasioNFORnoREAsSON then modify or delete it. Whether it's deception, false advertising, misrepresentation I don't really care to be honest. It's a bullshi7 "policy" and I wouldn't do business with them.

Rev2010 said:

James (Northern Brewer) ... Some people are surprised to learn that large glass items can break and so I like to recommend plastic just for that reason.

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I don't love the sarcasm.

The response contains several references to "unseen shipping damage" by Ace Ventura style UPS guys. That's kinda dopey.

I would not accept this email response as the official NB response. It's not very well thought out. But at least they did respond.

Oh, and we did have positive reviews of the bubbler. We even had a front page article for it. James is trying to spin this negative thread into an isolated rant. You be the judge.

Rev2010 said:

I disagree. When I spend my personal time writing up a review to help my fellow home brewers shopping for a particular item and see it never posted because it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns it really annoys me. NB sells the Monster Mill as well, so why give such a crap that I gave the barley crusher 3 stars?? I want my personal time back if they're not going to use my review and that is something they can't give me back. I can completely understand inappropriate reviews but none of mine are inappropriate. To add to this, it makes my own personal shopping experience more involved since I can't trust their reviews and have to spend more time Googling for the whole truth.


Rev.

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Well, then you probably shouldn't shop at Northern, Midwest, Rebel, Austin, AIH...pretty much anyplace but Brewhardware.com and Amazon.com since it doesn't seem like any of those places post negative reviews of stuff.

Zepth said:

On the topic of business practises, I agree that no company should be able to censor legit reviews. If a reviewer is clearly out for vengeance, or typingaRIDICULOUSfasioNFORnoREAsSON then modify or delete it. Whether it's deception, false advertising, misrepresentation I don't really care to be honest. It's a bullshi7 "policy" and I wouldn't do business with them.

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I disagree. They own the websites and they can say what gets posted on their websites and what doesn't.

Who decides what a "legit" review is?

passedpawn said:

I don't love the sarcasm.

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My thoughts exactly the moment I'd read that. Putting all the blame on the users and delivery men is ridiculous and insulting.

I also don't think the unnecessarily bright and cheery tone in which it was typed helps the matter either.


Rev.

LandoLincoln said:

Well, then you probably shouldn't shop at Northern, Midwest, Rebel, Austin, AIH...

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Well now that I know this I just won't even bother to post positive reviews on their sites. Why help them sell products if they're not going to provide a fair and balanced review system? I do agree with you that it's their site and they should be able to moderate reviews. I don't however agree that "it's their website so they're entitled to only post the most favorable reviews". In that case they should change the whole name and just put up a "most favorable review highlights" page.


Rev.

I'm glad someone from NB responded. They had to give their side and they did. Thanks to Rev2010 for passing that along.

But I thought their claim of "many big mouth bubbler users that are really happy with the product" to be disingenuous, and a bit flippant. No doubt there are many satisfied customers who like the glass BMB. That does not diminish the fact that people are being injured by the unreasonable brittleness of some of those fermenters. That there may be many happy users does not provide any consolation to people who have had to go to the ER to get stitched up. Seeing jbpiv's post, complete with photo of the stitched-up arm, made my jaw drop. All it takes is motivation and a good products liability attorney, and a lawsuit is born.

The argument that the damaged BMBs may be caused by shipping is a non-starter. It's passing the buck and it's absurd.

James at NB lamented the "negative thread going on homebrewtalk." Yes, the thread is negative. It comprises HBT members discussing something that is of deep concern to them. It is negative, but reasonably so. Instead of showing indignation toward our "negativity," perhaps they should think a little more about the well-being of people who pour money into NB's pockets.

Both Northern Brewer and Midwest are good companies, with mostly good products. They have an opportunity to make things right. Adding insult to injury (literally) does not help their case.

WillyTango said:

1.0

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Mine was also 1.0 I've since started using Speidel fermentors.

Someone needs to get them to make a glass conical. Kind of like the FastFerment, but made out of glass.

You can hang it on the wall about face high so you can see the beer fermenting...

Homercidal said:

Someone needs to get them to make a glass conical. Kind of like the FastFerment, but made out of glass.

You can hang it on the wall about face high so you can see the beer fermenting, and then one day it falls off of the wall and the ensuing shrapnel utterly destroys everything and everyone you have ever loved.

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Sounds like a neat idea.

Out of curiosity, I pulled my Gen1 off the rack yesterday night (it has been used twice) and just did a quick spot check of the thickness. On the top and bottom, it has appreciable thickness, but in some of the 'stamped out' square areas, the glass is eggshell thin.

Has anyone had luck getting an undamaged unit replaced by Northern?

I have but only because I had one break.

I'm shocked a lawyer hasn't jumped in on this thread yet.

bondra76 said:

I'm shocked a lawyer hasn't jumped in on this thread yet.

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Show it to one and i'm sure they will.

Just an update on my situation:

Got all the movement back in my thumb with no restrictions. I don't have feeling on my backside of my thumb down to where I was cut. Which isn't a big deal, just really annoying because it's not a fun feeling when it gets grazed, touched or hit.

That being said I will give northern/Midwest credit, they stepped up and paid all my medical bills (which could've been a lot more if I didn't have insurance) without having to get a lawyer involved so I really do respect that. I still don't plan on purchasing anything from them going forward though (Ive been using Adventures as well as my local homebrew store)

The whole experience has me deathly afraid of anything glass and I've switched to all plastic with brewing. Be careful everyone if you have this product, I don't want to see anyone else go through what I did or worse.

Jbpiv said:

That being said I will give northern/Midwest credit, they stepped up and paid all my medical bills (which could've been a lot more if I didn't have insurance) without having to get a lawyer involved so I really do respect that.

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Wow, holy crop, this is interesting to hear! Seems like they knew they were in for trouble with all the reports of injuries. While it's still disgusting that you were injured from a poor product and are left with permanent damage, I will agree it was admirable for them to pay the medical bills. Of course I'm sure many won't agree and think they should be sued up the wazoo, and perhaps they should be, but I still think that was nice being you didn't have to fight for the medical costs. All the best bro!


Rev.