Well this sucks!. I just finished my second batch and was cleaning all my gear. Got the carboy very clean and when I picked it up to put away I noticed a crack in the bottom. Is this normal? Should I stop using it? If I have to get a new fermenter I am considering the plastic bucket type? Are there negatives to this? It would seem that a fermenter is just a place for the beer to live for a few weeks and whether it’s glass or plastic should not matter. Am I just thinking amateur? Is there a reason to get a fancy fermenter?
There is advanges and disadvanges to glass. I have a few carboys but only use them on certain beer styles. Most the time i use plastic bucket. They are easy to clean and last long time with proper care. If i was you i wouldnt use your cracked one could break rest of the way and ruin a batch of beer and have a big mess to clean up.
In two+ years, I’ve used buckets on every batch except for one. I have two carboys(1 glass, 1 better bottle) but I reserve those for long-term storage(read lagering). Broke one glass carboy in my 5th or 6th batch(lucky no beer, just sanitizer). IMO, the ability to watch the fermentation in action is overrated, and leads to obscession… :cheers:
You could test your carboy by filling it with water and looking for a leak, but I probably wouldn’t trust it.
Asking for trouble. Every flaw increases the likelihood of failure. Might feel wasteful, but you’ll be furious with yourself if you lose a batch because you kept it.
Don’t use it. If it breaks open you can get very severely injured. Bood loss is much worse than losing a beer.
Listen to flars.
I stopped using glass carboys about 5 years ago. Plastic buckets are so much better in almost every regard (cheaper, safer, lighter, easier to clean, easer to store) and you will make equally great beer with them. The only thing that you can’t use them for is long-term bulk storage. But kegs are ideal for that, so there is no reason to use carboys.
I went out this weekend and bought 2 “Ale Pails”. I am ready to get back to brewing this weekend. And the price was nice. $35 bucks for two, with covers and brewmometers. Now, here’s the kicker! I was walking out of the shop and I saw this tall, stainless steel device with a chamber at the bottom. So keeping my excitement and suspicion inside of me I asked “What is this”? And the nice woman working there stammered a bit, then looked around, and then said quietly “i’t a still”. And I said 'Very nice".
I had one with the same crack in it which I suspect came from quick change in temperature while cleaning. I threw it out before it became a casualty.
Listen to flars.
I stopped using glass carboys about 5 years ago. Plastic buckets are so much better in almost every regard (cheaper, safer, lighter, easier to clean, easer to store) and you will make equally great beer with them. The only thing that you can’t use them for is long-term bulk storage. But kegs are ideal for that, so there is no reason to use carboys.[/quote]
ALL OF THIS!! ^^^^^^
I think I will encase the base of the carboy in epoxy resin and fill it 25% up with soil and turn it into a terrarium for a Venus Fly Trap! I have some seeds.
I never would have thought of something like that!
Well do you have any other ideas? What can I do with a carboy that has a crack in the bottom but is still all in one piece? If I fill it with liquid it could very well break. So I need to do something with it that is cool.
My comment wasn’t negative. Wish I had one to do that with. Maybe sometime in the future. Are you planning horizontal placement with wooden cribbing to keep it from rolling?
Or perhaps large miniature ship in a bottle.
I didn’t take it as negative. I will have it standing upright with the plant in the bottom.
I have 3 plastic carboys, and have been thinking about switching over to buckets. Main reason being is that the plastic carboys flex quite a bit. Often times sanitizer in the airlock will get sucked down into the beer when I need to move the fermenter to higher ground for racking purposes. That and the damn rubber bungs are nearly impossible to remove when needing to take a sample. I usually have to stick a sanitized screwdriver into the drilled hole and pry it out. I could be wrong, but I assume removing the lid on a bucket would be much easier. I’m sure as hell positive that a bucket would be easier to clean.
Raspy you may be pushing the bung in too far if it is that hard to get out. Lightly seat the bung, push down a bit and secure with plastic wrap. If your wort temp is warmer than ambient temp it will try to pull air in the carboy as it cools. When I cool my beer post fermentation I have found the S shaped airlock avoids pulling any liquid in.
Disclaimer: I use glass carboys so I’m only assuming those solutions may help.
Plastic carboys have the advantage of not breaking, but other than that they have all the other disadvantages carboys have.
Two big advantages of a bucket is that you can get them with (or add) a spigot near the bottom. The spigot makes it easy to take gravity samples without removing the lid and you can attach a hose with a liquid keg disconnect to drain the beer into a CO2-purged keg with minimal O2 exposure.
