I know many brewers currently use (prefer?) plastic fermenters over glass, be it a bucket, or commercially available keg or conical style but I also know that many (including myself) use glass.
This topic comes up once in a while and today was my day to find stress cracks in the neck area of one of my 5g carboys as I was doing a final sanitization and inspection of same.
Stress cracks can result for a number of reasons including improper handling, rapid temperature swings as well as immediate physical stress and physical stress over time which is what I believe happened in my case.
I am fond of using carboy handles and I handle my carboys very carefully yet I am aware of the physical stress that can occur from using them. Note however that stress cracks can occur anywhere on the item. Also remember that these are nearly as fragile as incandescent light bulbs so in general, handle with extreme care.
So, as a practice, be carefull with your glass apparatus, inspect all purchases, new or used prior to accepting delivery and above all, continue to inspect at each use.
It is this last point that allowed me to identify a problem BEFORE a larger problem (mess, loss of beer, physical injury) occurred!
The picture below shows the cracking mentioned above. This Carboy will now be retired via our municiple recycling program. Lucky for me I have several more so I can proceed today!
This is the end of this Public Service Announcement.
