Bucket or carboy for primary?

I just boiled my first batch the other night and so I asked the local hbs a few last minute questions and he told me I would lose too much beer in a 5 gal glass carboy so I should use the 6.5 gal bucket. I'm fermenting a stout in the plastic but was wondering if anyone had any opinions on what vessel I should use as my primary? I'm planning on just bottling in 10 days but was just curios what you guys thought.

I believe that it is personal preference. A 5 gallon carboy is a bit small and you should use a 6 or 6.5 gallon carboy. I use a plastic bucket for the 1st week of fermentation then transfer to a carboy for secondary. Plastic buckets are easy to clean as long as you don't scratch them to much.

I personally prefer the glass carboy. I think you miss alot of the fermentation with plastic. I think you'll be amazed at the amount of activity below the krausen a glass carboy allows you to see, and the plastic in turn robs you of.

I believe you will be better off using the the bucket. The bubbles that result from fermentation can get into the airlock if the fluid level is to close to the top (e.g. five gallons of beer in a five gallon carboy leaves very little room for the bubbles to dissapate and can result in one hell of a mess when they pop through the top and onto your floor) The 6.5 gallon bucket will give you enough space to keep this from happening.

You might ask around about what i believe is reffered to as a blow off tube setup where you run a tube from fermenter into a pail/small bucket instead of using an airlock. I have not used this method however and suggest you ask around if interested.

Hope that helps.

Plastic or glass really makes no difference, I usually use a 6.5 gal carboy, but am thinking to get a plastic bucket now as a second primarry. I am obviously not sure what he meant, but it would make sense if he was talking about it being 5 gal instead of 6.5. 5 gal is pretty small for a primary. Certainly put a blow off hose on that thing or your going to have a nice little mess on your hands.

Thanks guys, that's why I chose the bucket over the carboy. The only thing I was worried about was the level of kraeusen in the bucket because I thought I read that it's bad to leave it in.