Carboy Question
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bknifefight
Well-Known Member
I use only glass and I have only broke one in my several years. When they do break it can be dangerous and I am lucky I only had a small cut on my hand, it was SHARP! I am still not turned off on them though. Sure they are heavy and be broken but I don't really care. If you are concerned about them breaking or the weight, you should go plastic but I use glass because that's what my grandparents / parents made wine in and gave me!
ardentfrost
Well-Known Member
Plastic as in Better Bottle? They're lighter and they don't break... I have two glass carboys, and that'll be it for me for glass.
fatguy-littlecoat
Well-Known Member
i prefer glass carboy's because i can scrub the piss out of them to get them clean and i like to watch fermentation. Its really comes down to personal preference. plastic is easier to move around.
IceFisherChris
Well-Known Member
Plastic is lighter, cheaper, easier to carry, DOESN'T BREAK INTO DEADLY SHARP SHARDS, you can drill holes in it for spigots. However you shouldn't use some scrubbers because it can damage the surface.
Glass is easier to clean since you can use harsher solvents and you could even use a wirebrush if you wanted to. Glass is also not permeable to oxygen, but this maybe only become a factor for very long conditioning sessions. If you drop a glass carboy, the shards from it can slice your hand down to the bone.
For 99% of brewers, I don't think there is really anything better about glass than plastic.
Glass is easier to clean since you can use harsher solvents and you could even use a wirebrush if you wanted to. Glass is also not permeable to oxygen, but this maybe only become a factor for very long conditioning sessions. If you drop a glass carboy, the shards from it can slice your hand down to the bone.
For 99% of brewers, I don't think there is really anything better about glass than plastic.
buzzbee
Active Member
Glass carboys fit great in the crates milk gets delivered in. I am not condoning using these crates that everyone seems to have lying around,just stating that they fit great and make it safer to move those carboys around. And the glass does ultimately stay cleaner.
Considering you could buy two better bottles for the price of glass, you could use the hell out of one and replace it in two years. I can understand that brewers that have the glass around due to buying them years ago would still want to use them but I would never recommend them to someone buying their first kit. There are probably 10,000 glass carboys out there that have never been broken. It's the 100 of them that severely injured their owners that I'm concerned about. We're talking severed nerves, tendons and near bleed-outs. I'm not kidding.
Heartofglass
Member
G.D.! I was just checking this thread out cause Im wondering if I should save my glass 6 gal bomb for mead and go with my H20 #7 (other unknown plastic materials) Jug for the beer. And now that I have heard some of the sentiment around glass I have this added question. The other day when I filled that sucker up 6gal glass to clean I put it on its side on my counter to dump in the sink. Near 50lbs of water Im wondering if the glass jugs break just by the dead weight if they are used any way but upright. I must say it was a little scary cleaning it out half full on its side.
What do yall know on this?
Hog
What do yall know on this?
Hog
rico567
Well-Known Member
I have two 5 gal. glass carboys that came with my original kit, and two 5 gal. BBs that I subsequently acquired. I use the carboys strictly for secondary fermentation. All my primary fermentation is done in white plastic buckets. Given what I've learned, I now use the glass carboys only for extended secondaries of 3-4 months, and the BBs for the shorter "bright tank" function. As I am now moving to primary-only for most of my lighter gravity brews, I expect that I will get rid of the glass carboys before long.
ardentfrost
Well-Known Member
There are ways the glass can not withstand the weight of the water within. For instance, using those neck handles with a full carboy can break the neck.
I try to relieve some of the weight on the side of mine when dumping them out, but still do rest them on there.
It'll probably be fine. Just be careful.
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