kbuzz
Well-Known Member
I know you guys are probably going to tell me to just relax, but I wanted opinions on this anyway...
I brewed my second ever batch today, a Pumpkin Ale, and while trying to strain the pumpkin out with a funnel and filter, the wort wasn't moving through as quickly as I would have hoped. All I had handy at the time was my thermometer, so I was using it to try to move the pieces of pumpkin around on the filter to get the wort flowing a little more quickly. Well the thermometer must have caught on something cause it snapped and fell right into the fermentor which was filled with most of the wort at this point. Without truly thinking it through, I instinctively reached in with my bare arm and grabbed the thermometer out of the bottom of the fermentor almost immediately after it had fallen in. I looked and it didn't seem that any of the mercury escaped, but obviously I can't be completely sure. I pitched the yeast anyway and then started thinking afterward...should I just dump this now because of the potential mercury that might be in the beer from the thermometer??
I've read other posts about people sticking their whole arm into their fermentors to retrieve dropped items, so I know that I just have to wait and see on that, but I am a little worried about what mercury from the thermometer might do...as I said, it didn't look like any even came close to the broken end of the thermometer, but I don't really know how mercury reacts once the thermometer has been broken...
Any thoughts?? Should I dump this?
I brewed my second ever batch today, a Pumpkin Ale, and while trying to strain the pumpkin out with a funnel and filter, the wort wasn't moving through as quickly as I would have hoped. All I had handy at the time was my thermometer, so I was using it to try to move the pieces of pumpkin around on the filter to get the wort flowing a little more quickly. Well the thermometer must have caught on something cause it snapped and fell right into the fermentor which was filled with most of the wort at this point. Without truly thinking it through, I instinctively reached in with my bare arm and grabbed the thermometer out of the bottom of the fermentor almost immediately after it had fallen in. I looked and it didn't seem that any of the mercury escaped, but obviously I can't be completely sure. I pitched the yeast anyway and then started thinking afterward...should I just dump this now because of the potential mercury that might be in the beer from the thermometer??
I've read other posts about people sticking their whole arm into their fermentors to retrieve dropped items, so I know that I just have to wait and see on that, but I am a little worried about what mercury from the thermometer might do...as I said, it didn't look like any even came close to the broken end of the thermometer, but I don't really know how mercury reacts once the thermometer has been broken...
Any thoughts?? Should I dump this?