Any off tastes aren't supposed to come from the plastic.SteveM said:The conventional wisdom is that when you let a brew sit in a fermenter for more than two weeks, you should have it in glass rather than plastic. The thing that is thus being avoided is an off taste. Like David, I have never experienced an off taste from a plastic fermenter, so that's what I mostly use (and what I exclusively use for one stage fermenting). However, I do use a glass secondary sometimes, mainly when I am making a fruit beer, so that I can see the progress.
I like the ease of plastic - easy to put stuff in the pail, easy to sanitize, easy to use as a tool for sanitizing all your stuff, easy in a lot of ways.
bikebryan said:Any off tastes aren't supposed to come from the plastic.
The reason most folks recommend glass for secondary is that plastic is oxygen permeable, and the surface of the beer within it has a large surface area. Add all this up over a few to several weeks, and you have a better chance of oxygen getting into your brew than in a non-permeable container that only offers a very small surface area at the top of the vessel.
Really though, the choice is up to you. I'd never secondary in a plastic vessel, but that's the choice I made.
I've had beer in a primary for 34 days once. It won Best of Show...go figure.SteveM said:Thanks - I was not very clear in my comments - the off taste being avoided in theory coming from a level of air permeability.
SteveM said:In any case, it seems to me to be a lot tougher to get a good seal with a carboy plug than with the lid,
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