[fishtoaster]

A fun glass carboy story. I had just finished an hour-long boil of around 5 gallons of beer wort and then poured it into my carboy. I then needed to cool it down to a safe temperature for the yeast (~70˚) as quickly as possible to prevent infection. It was the middle of a western NY winter and so I though of the obvious solution which was to set the whole thing in a snow bank. Perhaps you can see where this is going.

As soon as I set this 5-gallon glass container of near-boiling liquid in the snow bank I realized my error because of the loud, CRACK sound. I lifted it up by the neck, but only the top half came away and I was left holding a comically large broken-bottle shiv. My roommates at the time all came out to properly laugh at me and I resolved to cool my wort before putting it in the fermentation vessel from then on. And also to stick with plastic fermentation vessels!