That’s great advise, goose, thank you! I do carry the majority of the weight by the bottom; I hold the next as a measure of balance.
I use gravity to siphon the beer from the glass carboy, sitting on a tall counter, to the Big Mouth Bubbler sitting in a sink, which is about 2’ lower. It works well, but it’s slow. I have considered using CO2 to speed the process. However, if I do venture into this idea, I’ll build in some sort of “relief” valve into the plan. Thanks again for the advise!
I find it interesting that I’ve seen certain other liquid based hobbies use vacuum to move liquid from vessel to vessel.
For example, to move from one vessel to the next, a cap with a vacuum cleaner attached pulls the liquid vs pushing it with CO2.
Of course, in those hobbies CO2 tanks aren’t normally sitting there waiting to be used.
I forgot to mention this in my OP. I purchased a low pressure gauge from Grainger (0-15 PSI) and use it when I transfer from a glass carboy (I think you can also get them fro SS Brewtech). Do not trust the gauges that come with the regulator (0-60 PSI) since they can not really be accurately set at low pressures and you can find yourself dangerously over-pressurizing the carboy. Safety first is wise here!
I’m with Denny here. I’m still using one of the original 5 gallon buckets I got in my first homebrew kit a little over 10 years ago. It has some light scratching on the inside surface from stirring things. I just make sure to wash it out well and sanitize. I haven’t had any issues. That said, if I did have an infected batch in a bucket, I would most definitely replace it.
I have one bucket in my fermenter arsenal - for a Flanders Red…just the right amount of O2 ingress for long term storage.
I actually don’t think scratches from metal spoons are an issue as they are sort of clean and regular. I would be more concerned with hundreds of micro abrasions from a sponge with an abrasive side or abrasive cleaners. I use a metal paddle but only clean with cloths.
As far as safely carrying carboys, which I have to do up and down stairs with mead all the time, my number one rule is to always make sure my hands and the carboy are 100% dry. Rule number two is always look at the stairs for objects first.
There really isn’t any need to clean buckets witu abrasives since they’re so accessible. I soaki them for a while then wipe them down with a soft cloth or sponge.
Me too. The only trouble I ever have is when I make elderberry mead which leaves an incredibly sticky substance that requires rubbing alcohol and a plastic scraper.
I have an 11 year old bucket that was my first FV that I still use. I have had no more or less infection issues than I have with my one gallon glass FVs.
I still have old buckets from the beginning days of brewing…but I don’t use them for fermenting anything except an occasional sour beer. They are very useful still - as vessels for collecting water, running off wort, and holding grain. All good things and good re-purposing is always welcomed.
A 5 gallon glass carboy slipped out of my hands and i tried to save it… didn’t save it. It exploded all over the ground and I lost 5 gallons of awesome beer!
I looked down, and my hand was completely filleted open. There was a three-inch long, 1-inch deep gash through my thumb muscle. It looked like the eye of Sauron, just big and gaping. Put it this way, the ER doc was able to stick his entire finger in the wound to fish for any glass in there. At first it didn’t bleed, then it did - a lot! My lady, badaged me up with 3 layers of dressing and we went to the ER where I got three layers of stitches. The first two layers pulled the muscle back together, and the last layer stitched the skin back together.
The doctor said if it were 2 inches lower, that would have been my wrist and that 1/4 thick glass didn’t care what media was presented to it, it was going through anything.
Since it was filled with 5 gallons of beer, the blast radius was about 6 feet in all directions. I had two 8 gallon pails that were about 4 feet away and the flying glass punched a hole through one of them. Thousands of little death shards all over the garage to pick up. No more socks or bare feet in there for years now 
Overall, no tendons, no ligaments - and the muscle healed completely up - no harm done and I have an awesome scar and story.
I guess the morale of the story is, if you ask me, stick to pails or SS. My mishap happened in an instant and you have no time to think - you just react, kind of like when you trip and catch yourself. Next thing you know is you are filleted like a premium steak… not worth it!
I agree. It took me 3 broken carboys (I’m a slow learner) before I wised up and stopped using them.
This is why I now dry hop in the SS fermenter and keg everything from the fermenter. Glass carboys are very nice and easy top clean, but they can also be very dangerous.
Actually, I never found carboys easy to clean at all. Whether plastic or glass, the small opening always made it a PITA for me. Even if I soaked everything off, just filling and emptying them was more difficult than other form factors.
Same here. I used the glass carboy that came with my first kit exactly once. I used a few 3 gallon Better Bottles for bulk aging of meads and sours, but buckets were my go-to until I started fermenting in kegs. But even the Better Bottles with larger openings were a PITA to clean.
I still use carboys and of course I have them in straps that makes them much safer and easier to carry.
My kegwasher cleans them up nicely without having use use a brush.
I am planning at some point to move away from them though probably back to buckets.
Edit: The link below is a video of my carboy on the kegwasher.
Cool… didn’t know such a machine existed.
The only ones I have a bit more trouble with are the 6.5 gallon ones. The 5 gallon ones are pretty easy for me to clean using dairy cleaner and a carboy brush that i reformed to get to the hard to reach places near the neck (I also added electrical tape around the wire handle to keep from scratching the glass in he neck). I can usually clean a 5 gallon one in a few minutes. For the 6.5 gallon ones, which I rarely use, a bit more reforming of the brush gets the job done, although a lot more slowly.
Since I have both a half barrel and 7 gallon SS Brewtech fermenters, I don’t really have to play with glass carboys that much anymore.
I have a local brew buddy who built one of these. He loves it!
Sure, but compare that to wiping a bucket out with a sponge.