5g Carboy vs. 6.5g Carboy

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shinebox97

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Fairly new to homebrewing and I'm thinking about moving to a glass carboy as my primary fermenter. Before I go out and buy a glass carboy I justed wanted to get a few opinions on which size should be purchased. It would be great to hear the PRO's and CON's from the more experienced brewers, what you've used in the past, experiences using a 5 gal vs. 6.5 gal, etc.

Thanks in advance.
 
A 5 gallon carboy is a bit small to do a 5 gallon batch. You need some room for the krausen to rise. A 6.5 gallon carboy would be perfect. You might be able to get by with a 6 gallon carboy if you use a blow off tube. In a 5 gallon carboy, you might lose quite a bit of beer out of a blow off tube.
 
The difference in volume is pretty simple for 5 gallon batches:
6.5 gallon if you want to use it for a primary
5gallon for a secondary.

Unless you want to lose up to a gallon of beer to blowoff, do not use a 5 gallon for primary.
 
I'm not very experienced, but I do have several batches under my belt.

I assume you are doing 5 gallon batches. If so, you should definitely not get the 5 gallon carboy. You'll need extra headspace for the krausen otherwise you'll have a whole lot of stuff coming out of the top of your carboy.

5 gallon carboys are good for secondary fermenters. And Apfelwein.
 
Along these same lines (deciding on Carboy to buy) I was looking at a kit that came with 2 five gallon carboys, thinking I could use them as primaries if I wanted a few batches going at once instead of using as secondaries, but it looks like the 6.5 is the way to go in that case. Is there any reason you shouldn't use a 6.5 as a secondary as well, if you wanted to go that route?
 
If I had it to do again, I would get all 6-6.5 gal Better Bottles(plastic). I have 2 now and 4, 5 gal glass. Glass is easy to clean, but it is also heavy and you have to obviously be more careful with it. If you can get the larger sizes do that... you never know when you might have...2,3,4 batches in primary at the same time!!
Most kits offer a sub for the BB instead of glass carboys. Look into it depending on the kit.
 
I hear a lot of good things about Better Bottles, and one of those good things is that (obviously) they aren't as breakable. That said, I have brewed for 30 years, 29 of them with the same glass carboys and have come close to breaking one only once.

I would say get the 6.5 because you can always brew a smaller batch in the bigger bottle. If you get into the hobby far, you may well decide that an extra gallon of bottled brew is well worth it.
 
Is there any reason you shouldn't use a 6.5 as a secondary as well, if you wanted to go that route?

I think the only downside to that is that you have less headspace.

Strange, I know, considering how we all just said you need more.

However, once you've racked to secondary most if not all of the actual fermentation should be over. Having less headspace therefore means there's less room for oxygen to get in and makes it easier to keep a CO2 blanket on the beer. I'm not sure how much of a practical problem that is, though. Maybe there's someone out there who has had success doing a secondary in a larger vessel.
 
If I had it to do again, I would get all 6-6.5 gal Better Bottles(plastic). I have 2 now and 4, 5 gal glass. QUOTE]

I was unaware that Better Bottles came in 6.5 only the 6 gallon variety . . .

http://www.better-bottle.com/


Making BEER in a 6 gallon container be it a BB or a 6 gal. glass carboy is not much fun . . . Its doable untill you make a "Monster Beer" . . . I'm lazy plain and simple. With the 6.5 gallon carboy the extra head room is nice and STILL have to use a blowoff sometimes. I posted a vid last week that had a 5 gallon batch in a 7 gallon bucket and it still wasn't enough head space.
If your wanting a Glass Carboy just for the the kewlness factor that's one thing. I admit its fun to watch the fermentation. :rockin: But for the simplicity of cleaning and the cheapness of it ... A bucket is the way to go . . . Do you NEED to watch 3, 4, 5 batches going through primary fermentation all at the same time ???

After all my BS and to answer your Q . . . 6.5 primary and a couple 5's for clearing, easy wines and lagering.

You can find DEALS on Glass Carboys because they have been around FOREVER. Heres what I picked up today off of CL . . .You don't even want to know what I paid for them.

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A guy on Ebay sells 7.5 gallon carboys that I bought for fermenting. It works better than 6.5 carboys because you can really pour in the wort from a high distance thru a funnel for aeration which causes foam build up that the 7.5 carboy can handle. 7.5 can also survive the head growth of a high gravity barleywine without much blow off. Below is a link for the Ebay item.

http://cgi.ebay.com/HUGE-7-5-7-1-2-...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item45ee061cde
 
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