Boiling the Wort

• Most most home brewers use a 5-gallon or 6-gallon kettle when they brew, so they must heat a lot of water, often on a small stove. To speed up the boiling of the wort, some brewers will cover the pot, which often leads to boil-overs, with hot liquid overflowing onto the stove, floor and, potentially, onto the brewer. To avoid this danger, closely monitor your pot throughout the boil.

Heavy Equipment

• Beer is boiled in a heavy, stainless steel kettle and often fermented in glass carboys. Both pieces of equipment become exceptionally heavy with the addition of five or six gallons of water. Be careful, especially with glass carboys, as dropping them on a foot or other body part could result in a broken bone or other injury. Plastic "better bottles" are good alternatives to glass carboys. They will not impart off flavors into the beer and are lighter than their glass counterparts.

Cooling the wort

• After the boil, hot wort must be cooled, which is another potentially dangerous part of the process. The full kettle must either be carried to an ice bath or a wort chiller must be placed inside the boiling wort. Wort chillers send cold water through metal tubing and shoot hot water out another tube at the end as they cool the beer. Weight and heat are the two dangerous factors during this part of the process.

Pressure

• If you are kegging, you will probably be using a CO2 tank, which is possibly the most dangerous element of home brewing. Contents inside a CO2 tank are under high pressure, and when connected to a keg improperly they can spray beer out at high pressure. Make sure all connections are secure, both from the CO2 tank to the keg and from the keg to the tap line.

CO2 Leaks

• The most dangerous thing about using CO2, however, is a leak. CO2 tanks must always be kept upright, and everything connecting the tank to the keg must be secured tightly. If your CO2 tank is kept inside a cold refrigerator, the regulator may show that there is less gas in it than you expect--generally this is because gas compresses at low temperatures, fooling the regulator, rather than due to a leak. To check for a gas leak, put soapy water over your connections. If bubbles form on the connection, you have a leak. Immediately shut off the CO2, and leave the area to allow the gas to disperse. CO2 is present in the air we breathe, but high levels of CO2 intake can be toxic. Symptoms of toxic intake include headache, dizziness, lightheadedness, sweating, increased heart rate and tremors. Although most home brewers use the soap method to see if there is a CO2 leak, you can also get a carbon dioxide gas detector for added security.