Thread: Texson's Steriod Tip #143: Crashed Gear

(this is actually a reply to a pm)


A reader from Oklahoma writes: tex, my shit's fucked up, man. Finished brewing it 2 days ago and everything was cool, and today it's got all kinds a shit in it. WTF?



Your gear has crashed, my friend. In other words, the carrier (oil) could not contain the hormone density asked of it and what you are seeing is the hormone in its crystalline form. The steroid has literally jumped out of the oil.











In a way, crashed gear is kind of cool if you bought it from a brewer with a solid rep. It means your stuff is good. Loaded with so much hormone that the oil could no longer hold it all. The downside is, in normal mg/ml ratios using standard BA, BB and oil quantities, you really don't know what the actual mg per ml ratio is other than to say 'high'.

Either way, in this case, crashed gear isn't a problem. There are several ways to correct the problem, none of which I have practiced myself. I'm lazy. I simply heat up the Mr. Coffee plate and let the gear set until the hormone dissolves back into the oil. Not only does it dissolve the crystals, but you get a very smooth and comfortably warm injection. Which is great for larger volume injections since warm gear is thinner and disperses within the muscle much better than gear at normal room temperature.

Most people I know simply add a bit more BB to the mixture, which is a preferred method over simply adding additional oil. If you do add more oil, you should add a proportionally correct amount of BB as well - remember the molecular binding.

In the most extreme case, people add more mixture - oil with the correct amounts of BA and BB added.

Of course correcting the problem by adding contents renders the mg/ml questionable, but then if the gear crashed to begin with, did you really know the true mg/ml ratio was to begin with?



And then there is always the other side of the coin -

On the other hand, if the brewer's rep is questionable, or he has sobriety issues, it could mean a fouled batch. In this case, things become a little more dicey.

BB has a two fold purpose in making gear. It is used for sterility while the gear is in the body and it also aids in the hormone's ability to molecularly bind (remain dissolved) within the carrier (oil). Crashed gear, in this case, could indicate substandard oil or bad BB. Or, it could simply be that a mistake was made in the proper volumes while brewing. This is the scenario in which I simply trash the stuff. I am way too particular about what I pin. If I brewed it, which I mostly do, then I will correct the problem and have every bit of confidence in it. If someone else brewed it - someone unknown or with a questionable rep, then all bets are off. I have heard too many UGL horror stories to trust any problematic gear not brewed by me personally. It simply isn't worth it to take a chance.

Either way you go, aside from the Mr. Coffee method, sterility has to be maintained which means filtering. Either before or after additions and adjustments are made.

Anyway, hope this helps. I'm sure some of our expert brewers here will chime in and add their thoughts on the matter as well.