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Barrel Char Wood Products
Yeah, after I bought handles for my original carboys I noticed the packaging says not to use the handles to move/carry full carboys because you risk breaking the neck... What's the point then, I don't need handles to move empty carboys. At least I only bought two, don't use them.

Wrathwilde
 
I've had a phobia of busting a carboy ever since I worked in a Hospital Clinical Laboratory and was called to the ER to do blood gases on someone who had an empty carboy explode point blank in his head, neck and chest area.

Luckily the gentleman survived, but we put 12 units of whole blood through him due to the arterial bleeding.

I built my little rolling dollies so I wouldn't have to carry them around, and all of my washing and sanitizing is done in a deep sink that will fit two carboys. I use rubber gloves which grip really well when transferring them from the sink to the draining bucket, and then to the dolly.

I'm really, REALLY careful when handling glass.

Cheers,

Oskaar
 
Thats a true statement wrathwilde. that is why I bought my first handle. To carry a full carboy. But I think of it as a $5 insurance policy on my $20 carboy. More than once I have almost lost a carboy while cleaning it! One time I lost grip on a carboy and realized I would be making a visit to the E.R If it would have broke. So for savings and safety I have a handle for all but 1 of my carboys. The last one I bought to put on it was a really good price. When I got home it was to big.. But I plan on getting a 6 or 6.5 gallon carboy soon so I kept it.
 
Wish I could say I have as nice a set up as Oskaar describes. I do my fermenting in the basement, but the preparation is done in the upstairs kitchen. That means I have to lug the heavy carboys up and down the stairs.

I had a scary incident where I was washing out a five gallon carboy, emptying the rinse water out of it into the kitchen sink. (The sink is standard size, so I have to move it from the countertop to the sink, balancing it on the towel covered sink edge (to protect against scratches)). The nearly full carboy, which I was cradling, slipped out of my hands. I think it was a combination of all the horror stories of broken carboys flashing though my mind and a surge of adrenalin, but I caught the carboy in mid air, bobbled it, caught it a second time a few inches off the floor.

Whew!
 
Wow!!! I admire the way you increase your post count Dan. ::) ;)

edit - (Dan has since removed the post #24 Quoting himself directly from post #23)

My Current setup is in a closet on one of those 400lb capacity wire shelf metal racks, I may be moving my mead storage area upstairs. I have a large unused room at the moment... barely too small to use a full size pool table, otherwise it wouldn't be empty ;D... I'd like to turn it into a walk in cooler, but alas I live in an apartment and even if the landlord would allow it... I don't want to spend the money for one until it's my own home I'm buying it for.

Wrathwilde
 
Wrathwilde said:
Wow!!! I admire the way you increase your post count Dan. ::) ;)

edit - (Dan has since removed the post #24 Quoting himself directly from post #23)
Click to expand...

Oh, you saw my goof, hitting the quote key instead of the modify key, before I had a chance to remove the duplicated post. ::)

Only a goof, but this reply was definitely nothing more than a post increaser. ;D

Yay for me! Big 364!
 
A basement Dan? You have a basement???
Man what I wouldn't give to have a basement.
Here in earthquake country we don't have them. In fact I just built my house and you would not beleive the foundation. I asked the engineer about a basement and he said the concrete walls would have to be so thick they'd meet in the middle and leave no room!

Anyway - I have a hangar which has a lot of my set up for this hobby. The problem is I don't have the required kitchen features such as running water and a stove. It would be great if I could do everything in the hangar, but I can't. So mostly I use it for long term storage. I have a bunch of fifty dollar refridgerators along the wall and keep my aging product in those. Aside form that I do all my preperation at home, and admittedly I simply manhandle the carboys. The handles have always made me real nervous, too much neck stress, so I use my big paws and as much caution as I can employ. A better way would be nice! When I use the 15.5 guys I change my tactics and do everything where they will repose for the duration. As I have hardwood floors I am not going to use a dolly like Oskaar, and scratch the floors. So I set them up on a shelf and fill them there, then when I rack into smaller vessals they are below and I let gravity do its thing. Whew - so much science!
 
I'm a wee thing, so when I have to move a heavy carboy from the kitchen to my brewing corner, I lift it down onto an office chair and roll it through the living room.

I am in the process of designing a wheeled cart that will hold 2 carboy, plus all my gear in a drawer underneath. Hinged lid for the carboys so they dont get light, but I can peek on em, and a shelf system beside that to store more stuff.

Just have to get the plywood now. :)
 
How bout I send you the plans when I get them figured out? ;) Shouldn't be too hard to make at all, just a matter of getting supplies.
 
Dropped a carboy once (no handle), when washing it (B-Brite), so it was kind of slick. Dummy me tried to catch it, 9 stitches later and a little wiser. :P Good thing I was already a little numb ::), wrapped my hand in a towel and drove myself to the hospital.
 
Hey Mynx,
That's what boyfriends are for...to lift and move heavy objects, to built thigs...At least that's what my ex girlfriend kept telling me :-\ And I :'( belived it :'(
Not only do you brew, you build things too. WOW, I'm impressed !

Ted
 
My boy is wonderful, but I usually brew when he's not around. Dunno why really...

That and I'm fairly self-sufficient, and my dad's a carpenter, so I learned this stuff a long time ago...

The boyfriend keeps my computer running tho ;)
 
Way cool Mynx :D
Post a picture when you're done, please!!!
BTW, your "leaves sample" will be mailed after the 4th :-X

Ted
 
Commander Toasty said:
A basement Dan? You have a basement???
Man what I wouldn't give to have a basement.
Here in earthquake country we don't have them. In fact I just built my house and you would not beleive the foundation. I asked the engineer about a basement and he said the concrete walls would have to be so thick they'd meet in the middle and leave no room!

Anyway - I have a hangar which has a lot of my set up for this hobby.
Click to expand...

In a way, it sounds like you have a similar set up. I do my preparation in the kitchen, then lug the carboys to the basement. You do the same, then lug the carboys to the hangar. Is that more or less descriptive?

Thanks for the tip on carboy handles and neck stress. It makes sense! I'm real careful witih avoiding scratches to the outside surface of a glass carboy, since it can cause structural instability.

Might be best to keep the carboys in those square plastic containers, but I don't know where to find them in my area. Plus, I'm lazy, and will manhandle the five and seven gallon carboys over the sink rather than take the necessary safety precautions. :-( (Why won't Mozilla Firefox let me click on the right smiley faces?)
 
That's what I do, but the lugging is a bit of a project because my hangar is four miles away. So i have all this very careful transporting to do, and I have to somewhat duplicate my equipment at both locations because I make adjustments to the must at the hangar. And that's where I bottle. Since I can't sterilze there due to lack of water, I have to prepare the bottles at home and then schlep them to the hangar. It's a pain! (but worth the effort).
 
Brewbear said:
Way cool Mynx :D
Post a picture when you're done, please!!!
BTW, your "leaves sample" will be mailed after the 4th :-X

Ted
Click to expand...

Awesome Ted, thank you!

After the 4th works well, as I have to wait till payday to get the ingredients.
 
I've looked at both the handles and the bags and opted for a much cheeper endevor...

Milkcrates. They offer good handles can go in the disswasher for sanitizing and they prevent the few carboys i have from jossleing up against one and other.

My brew room's still a work in progress though or i'd show with pics

:'(besides... (sadly) most of the carboys were emptied prior to moving and i havent yet had the time to refill them. So it's not much to look at.
 
I am with Dan, in that all my preps are accomplished in the kitchen, and I get to lug them down a nice narrow staircase to the basement. It is not the best of situations, but untill one of us wins a lottery, and can afford an Oskaar-esque brew shack ;) , it'll do!

As I read the instructions and warnings on the handle as carefully as I read the Wall Street Journal everyday, I was until currently unaware that carrying full carboys with the handles is a bad thing :-X . I am going to have to pretend I did not read this, otherwise I am going to throw out my back!

I have been meaning to get a picture of our set up downstairs though. We have a fully finished basement with a full bathroom. Seeing as how the shower in the bathroom is a total waste of space (as far as a shower goes), we decided to modify it to assist in our alcohol storing fiasco. We constructed a wooden frame inside the shower with two large shelves on it, each with a surface area just shy of the width and depth of the shower itself. The shelves (though not tested by any governmental body) have been shown to hold quite a bit of weight, so we have all the 1 gallons and 3 gallons on the two shelves, while the 5-6 gallons hang out on the shower floor. In addition to storing all the "creations", we actually have room to stick all the plastic buckets, tubing, scrubby brushes, and whatnot. All I can say is that it should be fun trying to figure a way to get it out when we move!

Maybe sometime I'll get around to it.

Ganbei!
Geoffrey
 
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