Homebrewing Safety suggestions

STEAM IS HOT AS HELL
I was boiling a starter in a 2L flask on the back burner of my stove. When some foam started to creep up the neck of the flask I reached over top of it to cut the temp back. The steam was very concentrated since it was coming out the small opening of the flask. Ended up with a good sized 2nd degree burn on my wrist. Now any starters I boil in a pot and transfer to a flask after cooling. After my experience and reading about people having hot flasks break on them I don't mind the extra step.

 

Regarding glass breakage. I switched to better bottles partly for that reason, but I still use glass for long-term aging and sours, etc. I ALWAYS put them in a milk crate to move them. This (partly) protects from breaking, and makes getting a good grip much easier.

 

To me, it's using common sense. To that end, don't start drinking until wort is pitched and in the fermenter. Once alcohol gets in the Brewer, mistakes are easier to make, and likely more dangerous, when you're dealing with 5 gallons + of boiling liquid.
With the glass carboys, I'm with CASK1, and use milkcrates for moving them around, especially full.

 

To re-enforce what has already been stated: glass carboys are dangerous! I personally conduct my primary fermentations using plastic buckets. I only use glass carboys for lagering my lager beers (I only make a few lagers a year). My precautions for using glass carboys:

· I use a milk crate in moving the carboys around
· I wear work gloves
· I wear steel tipped boots
· If I had one I would also wear a face shield (Note to self: buy a face shield!)

I have read numerous accounts that when carboys break, they break into numerous shards of glass which can produce numerous puncture wounds but also long and deep gashes that will require a lot of stiches in the emergency room.

Brew safe!

Cheers!

 

I've started to use the 5 gal Nestle purelife water jugs as fermenters because of the horror stories I read about glass. One thing I really prefer about glass is its "better" for transporting. What I mean is my plastic fermenters release more CO2 when pressure is applied to pick them up to move to the kitchen which results in air being sucked in upon release. The airlock doesn't bubble once with my glass carboy.

I don't have any evidence that this hurts the beer as they are usually consumed fairly quickly.

 

Might seem obvious, but hot wort is a thick liquid and it is sticky. Should have running cold water at hand because the hot, syrupy goodness will continue to burn well after contact. Also be aware of the type of clothing - one of the worst injuries I have seen in 32 years at my company was hot juice from an exploded gallon glass bottle getting on polyester type pants and melting the material to the skin. Not so much a problem for a small spill or splatter, but think about a five gallon boil coming down on you.

I think about minimizing movement as much as possible. This came up for me on my last brew day. Because of other activities, I couldn't set things up the way I like and ended up carrying heavy hot things more often and farther than necessary.

 

Obviously you need to wear goggles and a hard hat like they do at Third Shift.

By the way, I actually did catch on fire once back in our turkey frier days. I had on jeans that were really frayed, and it lit up. I lived. Had another friend burn his hand (not severely or anything) which made us coin the name "Burnt Hand Brewery", lol.

There has also been a couple times when lighting our burners (on the stand) where I suppose a little propane has gathered and you get a mini-fire ball ignition. Aaaand, there goes your arm hair. In fact, I hate lighting those bastards and the sooner we get our electric brewery set up, the better.

We don't use carboys anymore, unless we are out of room in the two kegs we use as fermentors and need to secondary. 10 gallons in a keg is heavy, and after we cool and pitch we have to carry that damn thing from the garage, through the house, to the basement.

And as stated above, I don't really drink when brewing. Maybe a beer during the boil, but usually no more.

 

secure the ends of all lines that have hot liquid flowing through it.

Too often, I've wedged the end of a liquid line temporarily between two things and the result was getting splashed with nearly boiling wort!

 

Don't brew in flip flops

 

Keep the brewing area tidy. It can get kind of hectic toward the end, especially if you're brewing by yourself, so you don't want to go tripping over an extension cord or bucket and landing face first into a pot of boiling liquid. I've found that developing a very clear brew day schedule executed methodically helps greatly. Early on, it was like, "Oh shit, I forgot to hook up the chiller'" so I'd be running around trying to get everything to where it needed to be. Now, by the time I need to chill, the mash tun is out of the way, the chiller is already hooked up, and all I need to do is open a valve and flip a switch. Don't brew like a chicken with its head cut off, basically.

 

yeah, wear sensible shoes and everything else will be fine. Look... I've broken a glass carboy, and it wasn't as catastrophic as you all are making it out to be, the neck broke off. Glass is free of reactive plasticizers (such as bpa), and will ultimately be cleaner. I'm using for one of my glass carboys a vintage culligan water cooler carboy that has got to be from the '60's.

 

Duct tape and a carrier. Problem solved.

 

I plan on going the electric route in the future too. Of course, this creates a whole new set of dangers especially during the build and initial power up. Ground Everything!!

 

I use glass carboys, and I don't know that they will break eventually. But I do handle them as if they can at any time. Similar to JackHorzempa's advice, I move them with a Brewhauler and wear gloves when handling.

As an aside, I know someone who dropped a glass carboy onto a cast iron bath tub. It removed a hockey puck sized chip of enamel, but didn't (apparently) harm the carboy. Dumb luck I guess.

 

Yep. The first time I picked up a full, Star-San-soaked carboy I knew I'd be switching to Better Bottles. Seeing pictures of sliced open hands on HBT just reinforced that.

 

Forgotten bottles in the freezer...only advantage... shards are well contained, but a fucking mess, nevertheless.

 

I had a glass carboy crack in my hands and come apart, shattering onto the floor and on top of my feet. I picked up and threw away long shards of glass the size of bayonets when I was cleaning it up afterward.

Have no doubt, glass carboys are potentially dangerous, especially when filled.

And I also agree on having a sensible plan for anything that could happen with 5+ gallons of boiling wort. Keeping the work space clear is a good all-round suggestion.

 

I've got a non-carboy story. I was making a yeast starter and had a liter of wort boiling on the stove when I added some yeast nutrient. The nucleation of the particles caused the wort to foam up and over the pan in about 2 seconds. Lucky for me the pan had a long handle so I put the pan off the heat and the foam disappeared rather quickly.

 

No, we don't all have this story. I'm crossing my fingers, but I never hurt myself in over 100 batches.

I do worry about glass. I have one glass carboy in my rotation, and I take precautions like these:

I have it taped up pretty good to contain the glass if it crashes and I move it in a milk crate, designed to hold 8 gallons of glass milk jugs.

One of my concerns is that my balance or back will give out when I'm lifting a batch. I brew in the kitchen and ferment in the cellar, so I do have to make an awkard haul down some scary stairs.