Official Broken Carboy Count.

SSBrew - 728
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Broke my first one last week while cleaning with a carboy brush. No drama, just an oblong circular crack toward the top. I could not trust it any more so just put it in the trash. Sad though as it was one of my 2 6.5 gal. I assume I must have bumped it at some point and the brush just finished the job. Likely I will replace it with a plastic bucket. Since I primary only, for 4 weeks, I really like the glass because I know I get a good seal. Oh well. :mad:
 
Bigcorona said:
I could not trust it any more so just put it in the trash. Sad though as it was one of my 2 6.5 gal. :mad:
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My crack was on the bottom of my 6.5, just in a small section near the bottom edge, but there's a slight leak, so I can't trust mine anymore either. I was tempted to ferment in it then rack to my new one as a secondary, but after a search of the forum (where I found this thread) I decided it's not worth the try.
 
26(i think) +1=27. Broke my first one on my first brew day. I was dumping Star Sans out of it and it slipped. It broke in the tub I was using to catch the overflow of sanitizer. Luckily I had a bought a spare fermenter earlier in the week so I was able to save my first batch. Still haven't tasted it though. That will be this Sunday :)
 
My number has been called

27 + 1 =28

ImageUploadedByHome Brew1393693615.625703.jpg

No wort, beer, or blood loss; it happened as I was pouring rinse water out post-PBW soak. This was about the best possible scenario.
 
Originally Posted by Grinder12000 View Post
29 - first one ever - back into it as it was on the floor.

carboy brush?? why? Oxy does a great job.
I read in another carboy thread that the oxy etches the glass and weakens it...
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hmmmmm - interesting! I doubt it but I certainly can't argue AGAINST it!
 
augiedoggy said:
I read in another carboy thread that the oxy etches the glass and weakens it...
I dont know how much truth there is to it.
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I'd love to hear the supposed chemistry behind that claim. OxyFree is essentially sodium percarbonate and shouldn't react with glass. If it does, PBW will do the same things since it's sodium percarbonate with chelating agents and surfactants added.
 
35+1=36
I got home from purchasing someone's full setup from craigslist (including 4 kegs) and put everything in the kitchen and went to bed since I had driven about 5 hrs total to pick this stuff up. The next day, the dogs were running around and knocked two carboys together and put a hole in the 5 gallon one with the 6 gallon one. I think the 6 gallon one was made with thicker glass because it is the only one I have that doesn't have ridges in it. The broken one had really thin glass walls.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
augiedoggy said:
I read in another carboy thread that the oxy etches the glass and weakens it...
I dont know how much truth there is to it.
Click to expand...

There's no truth to it. It's someone's excuse for being careless when handling their carboy.
 
39.

Only broke one years ago, moved to plastic. I can still break those, but the consequences aren't as dire...
 
I broke one in 1994 while crash cooling a porter. Pulled it out of my fridge, and the bottom half separated from it and put several gashes in my hand and leg which sent me to the ER for stitches. Oh, and to add insult to injury...I was brewing in my upstairs kitchen that had hardwood floors and the porter drained through the floor while I was at the ER and stained the ceiling in my daughters room, which I had to deal with once I healed up.

I'm very happy to be fermenting in stainless steel these days.

39+1 = 40
 
I didi break a 5 gallon carboy once but I was 4 beers into the brew and I set it down too hard on the concrete. Since then I have tried to drink only after the beer is in the carboy that is in the cooler that will contain fermentation.. No broken carboys sober or on pads!:mug:
 
Second brew. Slipped out of my fingers onto cement floor when I was dumping out starsan.


45+1= 46
 
I broke one about 2 years ago, is it too late to post in this thread? 3 gallons of pre-prohibition pale ale. At least I got to taste the hydrometer sample. (it was very good, which just makes this worse)

I was planning to bottle it from the primary, but carrying it up the stairs (4 gallon plastic carboy) to the kitchen stirred up the sediment and I decided to rack it into a 3 gallon glass carboy instead. Usually I use a handle or a milk crate to carry carboys, but I wasn't planning on this, and it was just a 3... I was carrying it down the stairs and my hands were wet and it slipped. It bounced in slow motion down the stairs until it hit the landing and exploded.
 
I purchased a 6.5 gallon carboy before I got my conical, to add to my other carboys. It arrived on my front porch in the box completely shattered. The only thing intact was about four inches of the top neck piece and the rest was glass shards in the box. The company did replaced it for me right away though. I didn't break it but UPS did :D Does this count?

John
 
No broken carboys for me but I did stop using the only glass one I had because I found a 3" long crack in the base. That soldier was retired immediately!
 
For those that brag about brewing for years without breaking one.... I hope it is not a "it is not if but when" scenario. My guess is that most will break one sooner or later.

I went with Better Bottles right from the start 6 years ago. It was for me, a weight issue. Now I am glad that my only glass carboy is a one gallon jug.
 
kh54s10 said:
For those that brag about brewing for years without breaking one.... I hope it is not a "it is not if but when" scenario. My guess is that most will break one sooner or later.
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If you were describing a scenario where a person had no control over certain aspects of the situation, I may agree with you, but that's not the case. We have complete control over how these carboys are handled. I've never heard of an incident which resulted in breakage that couldn't have been prevented with a little common sense.
 
bja said:
If you were describing a scenario where a person had no control over certain aspects of the situation, I may agree with you, but that's not the case. We have complete control over how these carboys are handled. I've never heard of an incident which resulted in breakage that couldn't have been prevented with a little common sense.
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I have... There are post on here where they broke while the owner was not even in the room. Some were not even thermally shocked or that the owner recall1ed bumping previously. Though they probably did. It just doesn't take much
 
catdaddy66 said:
No broken carboys for me but I did stop using the only glass one I had because I found a 3" long crack in the base. That soldier was retired immediately!
Click to expand...

Isn't that a break? The only carboy I've broken in 21 years had a similar break. Have no clue how it happened, but I consider it broken...
 
jcav said:
I purchased a 6.5 gallon carboy before I got my conical, to add to my other carboys. It arrived on my front porch in the box completely shattered. The only thing intact was about four inches of the top neck piece and the rest was glass shards in the box. The company did replaced it for me right away though. I didn't break it but UPS did :D Does this count?

John
Click to expand...

We purchased online two 6-gals and were amazed at how they were packaged with a lot of squeezed and wrinkled adhesive tape that was cumbersome to take out. Not that I wouldn't have prefered some other stuffing material but now i see the why.

On another note: do people here trust those metallic handles that are sold and supposed to hold out the entire carboy by the neck? No way I'm lifting a fully filled carboy with that...

I wish there were some sort of cushioned bag with straps that would let you carry the carboy as a backpack...
 
javert said:
We purchased online two 6-gals and were amazed at how they were packaged with a lot of squeezed and wrinkled adhesive tape that was cumbersome to take out. Not that I wouldn't have prefered some other stuffing material but now i see the why.

On another note: do people here trust those metallic handles that are sold and supposed to hold out the entire carboy by the neck? No way I'm lifting a fully filled carboy with that...

I wish there were some sort of cushioned bag with straps that would let you carry the carboy as a backpack...
Click to expand...

Javert when I used glass carboys I always used these brew haulers on them when I picked them up to put them into my chest freezer that I used to ferment in. Here is a link: https://www.morebeer.com/products/brew-hauler-carboy-carrier.html

John
 
Black Island Brewer said:
]Isn't that a break?[/B] The only carboy I've broken in 21 years had a similar break. Have no clue how it happened, but I consider it broken...
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Technically, yes. But it came with no lost beer, no shards of glass and no injuries. It was repurposed for my daughter's spare change collection.
 
So I've been brewing for 21 years. I've lost 3 carboys in that time. All 3 happened when brewing a tripel last year.

Preparing the water the night before as I do every time to allow chlorine to disipate, I lost one when the island on wheels in my kitchen decided to tip. (saved 2 from crashing, couldn't save the third) It dumped 5 gallons of water and lots of sharp glass on the kitchen floor.

Following the brew and fermentation( I do 10 gals), I filled the 2 fermenters with PBW to soak, put them in the garage. Needless to say we had a cold snap, I forgot they were out there, and lost 2 carboys due to water expanding when it freezes....

On the plus side, I got a name for the beer, "Glassbreaker Tripel" and it came out really well.

Still use glass sometimes, but switched primarily to fermenting in stainless in a 1/2 barrel Sanke.
 
I have the dubious honor of upping the count to 50.

We had brewed a Hefeweizen on Wednesday night and finally put to use those recently acquired burner for boiling and sintered stone for proper wort aeration. Manregrove Jack's Bavarian Wheat yeast was doing fine since Thursday morning the airlock was already bubbling a lot and the liquid was flowing up and down. Yeast must have been a little too energetic since by today Friday the incubator was a mess and carboy was torn in half with the airlock still in place in the mouth.

It looked like such a promising batch :(...

Blowoff tubes next time!
 

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