On Bribie Island I once lost a cube due to spontaneous fermentation. When I moved down here I brought three full cubes with me, the idea being to get the brewhouse up and running as quickly as possible in the new place.
They were the square 20L variety, two went off within a month of brewing :unsure: and the third, a RIS that was already a year old, was fine. I eventually pitched it after the New Year of 2013 and entered it in the NSW comp where it got a good review. The beer is still in a keg and I'll be trotting it out again for this year's comps.
So in 5 years and hundreds of brews, all up I've lost 3 cubes during storage and nowadays I use NC strictly as a short term thing, ....edit: in my new brewery - \edit... longest I've kept a cube has been about 10 days and even so I keep them at 4 degrees in my fermenting fridge. The kegmate / tomohawk type fridges will take 2 of the square cubes stacked up.
The two that went off had been brought down in the furniture truck and had been handled several times and I suspect that the seals had been "cracked" during the stresses of motion and transit, normally they just sit on a concrete floor. Also one of them had a tap fitted, I regularly used that one for pitching next day to run into the FV from a height to oxygenate ("single dropping"). I shouldn't have used that for medium term storage, as there's a strong likelihood of nasties in the tap mechanism. Lesson learned.
