I have every carboy in one of these:
It reduces the chance of bumping it down considerable. You can get them for about 5 bucks each on line.
I’ve broken one. Made a 10 gallon batch and I was trying to equalize the volume by pouring from a carboy into a bucket. The carboy was slippery with starsan and slipped out off my hand and ‘fell’ 12 inches on to the garage floor. 6 gallons of wort was washed down the driveway. I only use buckets now. I have a 5 gallon carboy that I age beers on long term - its my only one. Currently an RIS brewed in January.
i got a glass carboy that has a small air bubble towards the top. i got it at a steep discount for obviuos reasons. my question is would you guys think it would be safe to use as a secondary. i figure it wouldnt be good for the initial fermentation due to its volitility sometimes but thought the secondary isnt as violant. am i correct in thinking that? or did i go from getting a good deal to totally wasting my money?
[quote=“brewcrew44”]i got a glass carboy that has a small air bubble towards the top. i got it at a steep discount for obviuos reasons. my question is would you guys think it would be safe to use as a secondary. i figure it wouldnt be good for the initial fermentation due to its volitility sometimes but thought the secondary isnt as violant. am i correct in thinking that? or did i go from getting a good deal to totally wasting my money?[/quote]Be careful with it and it will most likely be fine.
http://brewing.lustreking.com/articles/ ... rboys.html
I found this collection of stories a while ago. I bought an 8 gallon bucket recently and will likely retire my 4 glass carboys and my never-used big mouth bubbler. There just aren’t any disadvantages to the 8 gallon bucket. I did use the carboy strap when handling full carboys but even just cleaning the damn things is dangerous. There are great brewers out there that use both. It is a matter of preference and risk tolerance.
True, but to revive another debate active on the forum, I’ll add that in the opinion of many people, a secondary is unnecessary. Just leave the beer in the primary for 3-4 weeks and everything is good. Also, if you do secondary and you don’t add any additional sugars to let the yeast produce a CO2 blanket over the beer, you should use a secondary with minimal head space, or fill the head space with CO2. So if your new carboy is a 5 gallon size, no problem. 6 gallons, probably not so good for a secondary.
The first carboys I purchased from NB were from Italy (kind of textured on the bottom). After that they sold a different carboy and I was told by an employee there that this other type was not as good - and mine cracked when I was cleaning it. I took a picture of the broken carboy and showed it to NB and they replaced it and said they were hoping to return to the better made Italian version.
I haven’t needed to purchase any more so don’t know if they made this change or not.
I dropped my first carboy a couple weeks ago. Was rushing around, hands were a bit slippery with StarSan and thankfully I dropped it right into my full swamp cooler. Full of water, no breaks! :lol:
