Beer Forum

So a housemate of mine saw some of my carboys and realized that he had a couple at his parents house up in the mountains. He told me they were pretty dirty and asked if I wanted them. Me, being armed to the teeth with PBW, graciously accepted them. When I got them they were pretty well covered with dirt and contained what appeared to be leaf and needle litter inside. The first one I cleaned with no problem in my shower like I normally do. Just some leaves and dirt inside, and some stubborn pine sap and dust on the outside. The next one looked a bit tougher as it was probably an eighth full. When I filled it with water and PBW the water turned dark amber brown and nearly everything floated to the top. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to clean. However when I dumped the water out, the leaf and needle litter turned out to be about 10% plant matter and 90% rodent carcasses. I was even able to identify one as a small squirrel. Needless to say this carboy got extra care and an extra round of PBW. My girlfriend my never show at my house again, but I got two free carboys out of it!

This got me thinking what's the grossest thing anyone has found in a Carboy? Derelict or otherwise?

I made about 50 gallons for my wedding in June in a span of 2 weekends. Brewed a 10 gallon batch on saturday and sunday each and 2 batches on the last sunday. By the time everything was kegged, I was so exhausted and just sick of cleaning/sanitizing so many vessels that I left a few carboys in the gargae with a couple inches of trub left (never again!). Fast forward 2 months, the dust had settled from the wedding and honeymoon so I finally decided to reorganize and check on my inventory. The trub left in the carboys turned out to be fucking paradise for a few horny fruit flies. I pulled one carboy out and noticed there were hundreds of little flies all over the airlock that was partially sitting in the opening. When I opened it up, worst fucking smell I've ever encountered. There we're litterally hundred's of thousands of dead/living fruit flies and hundreds of live larva maggots crawling everywhere! Honestly I cannot even come up with the words to describe the horid smell. I was just going to throw everything away but I had to try to clean it since I just bought most of the carboys/buckets before the wedding. Hot PBW is a miracle. After a few rinses to get the "debris" cleared out, I soaked those fuckers in ~180 degree PBW for hours and I swear those things came out cleaner than before I bought them.

The grossest thing was that everything was still alive and had been repopulating in the garage that whole time. I will definitely never do that again.

Just a couple dead mice in my mash tun which I still use today. Anyone for a beer?

RanchCat wrote:I made about 50 gallons for my wedding in June in a span of 2 weekends. Brewed a 10 gallon batch on saturday and sunday each and 2 batches on the last sunday. By the time everything was kegged, I was so exhausted and just sick of cleaning/sanitizing so many vessels that I left a few carboys in the gargae with a couple inches of trub left (never again!). Fast forward 2 months, the dust had settled from the wedding and honeymoon so I finally decided to reorganize and check on my inventory. The trub left in the carboys turned out to be fucking paradise for a few horny fruit flies. I pulled one carboy out and noticed there were hundreds of little flies all over the airlock that was partially sitting in the opening. When I opened it up, worst fucking smell I've ever encountered. There we're litterally hundred's of thousands of dead/living fruit flies and hundreds of live larva maggots crawling everywhere! Honestly I cannot even come up with the words to describe the horid smell. I was just going to throw everything away but I had to try to clean it since I just bought most of the carboys/buckets before the wedding. Hot PBW is a miracle. After a few rinses to get the "debris" cleared out, I soaked those fuckers in ~180 degree PBW for hours and I swear those things came out cleaner than before I bought them.

The grossest thing was that everything was still alive and had been repopulating in the garage that whole time. I will definitely never do that again.

Had a carboy blow-off when I was out of town before. My fermentation chamber at the time didn't seal completely and was out in the garage, I came back to quite a foul odor and the whole fruit fly orgy you described. It was a great time.