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**h22lude** · 12-01-2011, 04:47 PM

Basic Brewing

Basically the test was they made a 5 gallon batch, put half in a glass carboy and half in a plastic bucket. The outcome...the plastic bucket wasn't as good of a beer. They say because of the shape.

What do you guys think? I would like to see more tests done like this. I personally don't see how the shape makes a difference. Maybe because the carboy didn't have as much head room as the bucket did but I still don't see how that could affect the beer unless he really oxidized it.

**unionrdr** · 12-01-2011, 05:00 PM

I wonder,were both vessels the same volume? Or was the carboy lower volume? I think it might just be in their heads. Maybe something in the process.

1776 · 12-01-2011, 05:06 PM

Interesting. Makes me want to sell my buckets and buy some more glass carboys.

dpittard · 12-01-2011, 05:06 PM

I would like to see many more data points before I even began to think that fermenter shape played into taste. I mean, the tester had 2 samples of the carboy beer and only 1 sample of the bucket beer.

I'm very skeptical.

**Revvy** · 12-01-2011, 05:11 PM

I would like to see them send their beers out to multiple bjcp contests and have beer judges blindly rate them then tally up all the scores and comments.

**unionrdr** · 12-01-2011, 05:15 PM

Me too. It's not just a shape difference,but a material difference as well,so far as that goes. I think if it's clean,sanitary,& well sealed it shouldn't make a difference. They say plastic can leach o2 into the beer,but I tend to think that'd only be true for PET bottles. They're thinner than a ale pale,& clear brown. I don't think they're taking into account the fact that every ferment is different.
Seems to me that'd apply here as well,even though the constituents are the same. The only real change in shape would be the bottom. The bottom edges on a carboy are rounded,whereas the pale would be close to a right angle.

**h22lude** · 12-01-2011, 05:48 PM

Yeah I would like to see BJCP judges taste them too.

The shapes aren't really different until you get to the top which gets narrow on a carboy. The head space wouldn't matter much either since the CO2 pushes the O2 out of the airlock.

One beer split into two batch with one person tasting it isn't a very good sample size for this experiment. I think more people need to taste the beer and more batches need to be made.