Decided to do a night brew last night since the cooler weather has arrived. All appeared to go perfect, until this morning. Some how my floating thermometer broke off the bottom and the lead pellets ended up in boiler. Not sure if any made it into the fermenter. Should I be concerned.
brewing foul?
- Thread starter robange
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lead is poisonous, you know that ...right?
if the lead pellets fell into my beer while i was racking and they only had a FEW minutes contact with the beer, i might try to salvage the batch. BUT, if the pellets had more than a few minutes contact with the beer or they got boiled, i would be hesitant to drink the beer.
at least the pellets are small and that is not a large amount of lead. is there any chance that broken glass got into your beer?
if the lead pellets fell into my beer while i was racking and they only had a FEW minutes contact with the beer, i might try to salvage the batch. BUT, if the pellets had more than a few minutes contact with the beer or they got boiled, i would be hesitant to drink the beer.
at least the pellets are small and that is not a large amount of lead. is there any chance that broken glass got into your beer?
Misfit
Well-Known Member
glass or lead in a food product is never ever ever ever ever good. you can try your best to get it out but me personally would never keep anything im putting in my body that has lead or glass (both a possiably) in it.
I originally posted this thread from my phone which is hard to search the forum on for past threads, but now that im home and searched, it looks like the balls may be steel. i will keep searching till I know for sure. I will transfer to a secondary to make sure there is no glass in the primary.
TomRep
Well-Known Member
no need to search to see if they are steal. Have a magnet near by? lead isn't magnetic.
tom
tom
Fixed it for you
I believe that you will not find a food-grade floating thermometer with lead or mercury in it anymore, and as you already proved, that thermometer had "balls of steel!"
I would still be worried about the glass. Most of the time when glass breaks, its not a %100 clean break. So you get tiny glass shards and powder, which is still not something you want to ingest. I'd try to play it safe, and try your hardest not to disturb the sediment at the bottom at all when/if moving this batch around. When it comes time to rack/bottle, I'd siphon the batch from the top (don't allow the racking cane to sink down to the bottom of the batch) and stop siphoning when there's around 1/2 gallon left on top of the sediment. Hopefully, any glass chips would have found there way into the bottom of the fermenter, and by leaving some beer behind, you have a lower risk of sucking up some glass.
2brew1cup
Well-Known Member
Gift it to someone whos beers are better than yours. Poison them abd seize the title of neighborhood master brewer. Romans did this in antiquity so it must be badass.
underground and under the influence
underground and under the influence
How did it break? I've been brewing since February and have not broken my glass thermometer or hydrometer yet. I have broken a digital thermo by getting the probe/cable junction wet.
Rack above 3 inches then put coffee filter in your strainer mesh
CoalCracker
Well-Known Member
I've done this. Just give it plenty of time in the primary. Rack above the yeast cake, then secondary. Just to make certain it all drops out. Worked for me.
Weizenheimer
Well-Known Member
This just happened to me as well. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Tie a sanitized nylon hopping bag around the bottom of the racking cane and rack through it. I do this all the time anyway. That way it is being filtered in the beer and not out in the oxygen.
broadbill
Well-Known Member
If I might ask the question: Why do people have thermometers bouncing around in their brew kettles anyway?
D_Ranged_Eskimo
Well-Known Member
I was wondering the same thing.
I had been leaving it in the middle of the chiller while the temp was dropping for ease of checking. How does everyone else do it. So everyone knows, I am teachable, this was my 4th batch of beer in 2 months. I am still a noob willing to take advice.
I use a stainless, instant read, dial-type thermometer than ranges from 30 degrees-220 degrees
Conan
Well-Known Member
I did the same thing on my last batch. First and last time I'll use a floating thermometer. I had mine in during chilling, and was stirring beforehand. Took it out to stir, stopped stirring, put back in. Vortex smacked the thermo on the IC, little balls in my beer. Kyle
Word
Rockape66
Well-Known Member
I only use a floating thermometer in my mash for ease of keeping tabs on heat loss. For heating strike/sparge water and chilling I use a turkey fryer spike style SS thermometer. I decided this after having my first floater just pop in the water just off of the burner for hydrating yeast. It worked just fine through 10 or twelve extract batches and 6 all grain batches, then just gave up the ghost. FWIW; any remaining glass will settle deep in the trub. Just leave a little more beer in the fermenter when you rack to your bottling bucket.
