How am I supposed to clean glass carboys?

[Deadalus]

fwiw, I have been using 6.5 gallon smooth side Italian carboys for over 20 years now. I have six of them. I treat them like they're grenades.
You will never see me put anything inside or outside that is more than 5°F above or below the current glass temperature. Ever.

That includes rinsing them out after kegging, when the glass is still thoroughly chilled from cold-crashing. Putting even "room temperature water" in at that time would be a ~30°F thermal shock, and accumulating that type of thermal stress is exactly what leads to the thick bottom cleanly separating from the thin sidewall.

Don't do that.

Cheers!

The 5 is not a typo?

Please explain how you managed that <5F differential between the current glass temperature and the water over the last 20 years. In particular I am curious how you blended cold and hot tap water to +/-5 room temperature while having a ~98F body temp for reference.

I am also curious about how you kept the glass within 5F for wort transfer of both ales and lagers.

Even if you did have actual temperature readings, you are only proving that you were overly stringent because none broke.

I doubt I often washed a carboy straight out of the fermentation fridge with hot water. I would have transferred first, then got the beer bottled or kegged. But I sure as heck have washed a carboy in the winter that was either in my unheated basement (~55F) or worse the garage (close to freezing).

Twelve is a fair estimate of the number of carboys I've owned. I think I've broke 4-5. I have brewed during 2 periods, 96-03, 2018+. I had 3 from period 1 make it to period 2. Once in the car, once putting one down, unpacking one once (so mad, slight slip), and one got a small spidercrack in the side, I don't remember hitting it but occasionally I bump them in storage. At one point I had a total of nine but gave away several and only have 5 currently.

I'm not saying one can't thermally shock glass, but how many instances can you find where the bottom separates without impact vs how many carboys have been produced and used.

 

[homebeerbrewer]

fwiw, I have been using 6.5 gallon smooth side Italian carboys for over 20 years now. I have six of them. I treat them like they're grenades.
You will never see me put anything inside or outside that is more than 5°F above or below the current glass temperature. Ever.

That includes rinsing them out after kegging, when the glass is still thoroughly chilled from cold-crashing. Putting even "room temperature water" in at that time would be a ~30°F thermal shock, and accumulating that type of thermal stress is exactly what leads to the thick bottom cleanly separating from the thin sidewall.

Don't do that.

Cheers!

Well, some people won't learn until it happens to them. Hopefully, its not fatal when it happens

 

[v2comp]

150F water and Oxyclean. Let sit till next day, everything organic will just fall off. Super simple. Rinse well and sanitize after.

 

[v2comp]

The 5 is not a typo?

Please explain how you managed that <5F differential between the current glass temperature and the water over the last 20 years. In particular I am curious how you blended cold and hot tap water to +/-5 room temperature while having a ~98F body temp for reference.

I am also curious about how you kept the glass within 5F for wort transfer of both ales and lagers.

Even if you did have actual temperature readings, you are only proving that you were overly stringent because none broke.

I doubt I often washed a carboy straight out of the fermentation fridge with hot water. I would have transferred first, then got the beer bottled or kegged. But I sure as heck have washed a carboy in the winter that was either in my unheated basement (~55F) or worse the garage (close to freezing).

Twelve is a fair estimate of the number of carboys I've owned. I think I've broke 4-5. I have brewed during 2 periods, 96-03, 2018+. I had 3 from period 1 make it to period 2. Once in the car, once putting one down, unpacking one once (so mad, slight slip), and one got a small spidercrack in the side, I don't remember hitting it but occasionally I bump them in storage. At one point I had a total of nine but gave away several and only have 5 currently.

I'm not saying one can't thermally shock glass, but how many instances can you find where the bottom separates without impact vs how many carboys have been produced and used.

Ive owned exactly 8 carboys, broke one by allowing the bottom corner of one to tap a concrete floor and it hit an small (1/4") rock. Split in half basically. No injuries. The only other one to break was when my 13 year old son was running through the house with his skateboard in his hand, accidentally let a truck bounce off the side of a full one and I just happened to hear it crack. Grabbed and sanitized a autosiphon and another carboy, and manually racked about 4.5 gallons of a little over 5 gallons out before the cracked one broke apart spilling a little beer on the kitchen floor. That turned out to be a bad day for both of us.

 

[Deadalus]

Well, some people won't learn until it happens to them. Hopefully, its not fatal when it happens

And there have been how many carboy fatalities over the years? Then we can establish an actual risk of death and put that risk into proper perspective.

 

[mac_1103]

Life carries a 100% risk of death. So far, anyway.

 

[homebeerbrewer]

I don’t know how many fatalities there are, but I’m sure there are some. I don’t think someone will post about it here if it happens to them, so we may never know.

 

[Deadalus]

I don’t know how many fatalities there are, but I’m sure there are some. I don’t think someone will post about it here if it happens to them, so we may never know.

Your surety is misplaced if you can't find any and the fear mongering about dying from washing these hot is completely unnecessary given your lack of evidence. What really needs to be "learned" here is risk assessment on your part.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

please stop.

Historically, in these "type" of "debates", neither "side" "wins" and ....

... HomeBrewTalk discussion in other threads suffers.

Sometimes the discussion in other topics returns to the previous level.

Recently, most times it doesn't return to that previous level.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

And, BTW, with regard to OP:

so about a month ago.