Should Carboys always be glass?

My local Brew shop has plastic carboys, should I only buy glass or think about a plastic one??

http://www.defalcos.com/Catalog_c126686.html

Carboys should always be glass unless they're PET (better bottles). Then they're not glass.

A good deal of people swear by the PET "better bottles" but I prefer to go all glass.....I guess I think it's the better bottle, hands down. I think the most important thing if using glass is to get one of the $5 orange-rubber coated carboy handles that lock around the neck of the bottle. Each one of my 6 or so carboys has the handle and I've yet to break one over the course of 6+ years brewing. Aside from breaking, I don't see any advantage to plastic.

beer4breakfast said:

Those are PET bottles. They are suitable for use in making beer. HDPE and polycarbonate bottles are not suitable.

I prefer glass, but there are advantages to the Better Bottle (PET) bottles. Namely, they are lighter in weight and are shatterproof. Glass bottles have to be handled very carefully. They can be dangerous to the careless. Glass is less permeable to oxygen than any plastic, although PET bottles are very good in that regard.

Click to expand...

I was there Monday looking at the plastic ones. I will probably get one next week. I like the fact that they are lighter and are shatterproof.

Fiery Sword said:

Aside from breaking, I don't see any advantage to plastic.

Click to expand...

True, they don't have the tendency to break & slice a body part into several severed pieces, HOWEVER, getting the ported better bottles makes racking so easy that it makes you think about dropping the glass ones in the trash. Take a look at Johnsma22's gallery and you'll see a setup where he recycles the CO2 into his secondary and then uses that when he racks to make oxygenless (is that a word?) transfers. No need to worry about fluid in the airlocks with the one way valves. Amazingly easy to clean. So much easier to lift & move (since I don't have a place to dedicate to both brewing & storage, that's important to me as I carry my equipment & carboys up & down the stairs) When I can afford 2 or 3 more pairs of them, I'm punting the glass ones, so to speak.

The Better Bottles are also much lighter, which probably doesn't make a huge difference when full, but makes it much easier to handle them when empty...moving them around, cleaning, etc.
A friend recently switched over to Better Bottles and is planning on getting more now that he's used them.