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The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 11:26 am
by EchoSevenNine
So...

Just finished my 2nd stripping run of my cornflake mash on saturday morning.

10 litres of strip in my nice big glass carboy, smelling and looking fine. Lifted it to tip it into the boiler for the spirit run snd voila...
Image
Image

Arse broke clean off the carboy, flooded the garage and left me with 3 hours in casualty, great!

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 2:51 pm
by Mr Mac
Holy Cow - that’s rough!

How the heck did the carboy break like that?

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 3:33 pm
by EchoSevenNine
God knows, Mac.

I can only imagine there was a hairline crack in the carboy somewhere.

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 3:49 pm
by gaza the instructor
Hay buddy you go careful there.
Make you feel better, the boss absolutely loves it, it is in pride
of place with her hand turned fruit bowl. :)

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 4:50 pm
by EchoSevenNine
Ahh, you have to keep them sweet!

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 9:33 pm
by gaza the instructor
Normally I feed her raw meat, but not on a Tuesday!!

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 12:32 am
by Easydrinker
Commiserations dude.
it is just over a year since I decided to to stick my hand in a moving lawnmower.
I still feel it.
Losing good glassware almost brings me to tears.! :(
Pre-surgery.jpg

Robert.

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 6:55 am
by Mash
Ouch. The lower cut was close to being very serious indeed.

Large glassware is very dangerous. This is one I the reasons I have retired most of my 54litre carboys.

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 1:36 pm
by EchoSevenNine
Jesus, Easy, thats a bad one!

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 2:41 pm
by gaza the instructor
The object of the exercise gentlemen, is to finish the race intact.
Went to school with a guy who had 5 fingers and a thumb on each
hand, caused a riot in the maths class. :roll:

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 3:28 pm
by billythekid
WOW!

Get better real soon!
At least you've got alcohol to keep it sanitary :D

Bill

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 8:15 pm
by gaza the instructor
What about towels??

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 5:29 am
by phantom
Well, as much as I sympathize, if you've made wines etc, for any length of time, you will have heard of many instances of carboys, demi-johns or whatever you want to call them, breaking........

Mostly, it's just loss of the booze that's the result, but WTF, it's glass. Not necessarily "good" glass, but the cheapest formulation so it can hold water or whatever, so carefully does it etc........

Hope the injuries heal quickly :)

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 10:09 am
by EchoSevenNine
I'll be sticking to the Demijohns, from now on, Phantom.

Still glass, but they're a sturdy wee bugger compared to the carboys.

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 11:04 pm
by Easydrinker
Don't leave one outside on a frosty morning, you will probably pick it up minus its bottom. :o

Robert.

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 9:28 am
by phantom
Weird that given it seems to be so many different "types" of glass.

I have plenty of the usual UK style DJ's, but also the US style former "water bottle" type and some of the onion shaped ones that come in the plastic baskets.

I've not had any of the water bottle type ones break on me yet, but I've had one "onion" and a couple of normal size/style DJ's break.

Sure, it's just "packaging" but what makes one type better over another, I don't know.

If I'm using glass of any size, I try to use a pump to transfer between containers so that any glass could only break when cleaning it i.e. no real weight that could stress any flaws in the material.

Re: The dangers of distilling!

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 10:22 am
by Mash
Yes indeed. Never lift the larger carboys full.
The 'whale ' caravan pumps are brilliant for that job.