5 or 6 gallon fermenter?

[MrSmug]

I'm trying to decide whether I should purchase a 5 or 6 gallon better bottle for my dry-hopping/secondary fermenter. What size and with or without spigot? Opinions?

How come they come in 5 and 6 gallon sizes since most batches are 5 gallons in size? I have some ideas why but I was wondering if someone could clarify. I'm guessing the 6 gallon ones are for primary fermentation and the 5 for secondary? I'm guessing the only downside of getting the 6 over the 5 is the extra gallon during fermentation/secondary fermentation could lead to oxidation?

How far up do the 5 gallons ones get when the full 5 gallons are in them.. ie does it go all the way up to the neck? Will there be enough room for dry hopping?

Thanks

 

[RhythmSection]

I have a 6 gallon primary and 5 gallon secondary. Usually I aim for 5.5 gallons into the primary so I can have about 5 gallons in secondary or at bottling so I would go w the 5 gallon personally. A bigger primary is good for a lil extra head space, but usually ferm is done (or should be) by the time it's transferred into secondary so the extra headspace isn't really all that necessary. Just my .02 cents

 

[TromboneGuy]

Get the bigger. In most cases you don't need to secondary. If you want to anyway or you have a situation where you need a secondary, an extra gallon of headspace won't hurt. And if you put a 5 gallon batch in a 5 gallon fermenter for primary you'd better be ready to mop your ceiling.