Carboy Question

[tpartin]

Everything I have read has said to use a glass carboy for your fermentation vessel. I have access to several plastic carboy type bottles. Could I use those instead?

 

[jeffmeh]

It depends upon the plastic. #1 PET and #2 HDPE are fine. #7 is not recommended because of bisphenol-A, but there is some controversy around that.

HDPE can handle heat.

There are also many posts here about the tradeoffs between glass and plastic. I use a combination of #1 Better Bottles, #2 Winpaks, and #2 buckets.

 

[Greyhound]

I think a lot of people on this forum use Better Bottles as fermenters. Personally, I use a plastic bucket for my primary and a glass carboy for my secondary.

 

[nebben]

Yes you can use that. Better bottles, water bottles, glass carboys, foodsafe buckets, glycol chilled stainless...they'll all be fine. You bet.

 

[mikebiewer]

Agree with everyone above. As long as your plastic is one of the two mentioned above, go for it.

My rule of thumb has always been. As a new brewer, use whatever makes it cheapest for you, until you really want to explode into the hobby. Then upgrade to whatever you want.

 

[halite]

My rule of thumb has always been. As a new brewer, use whatever makes it cheapest for you, until you really want to explode into the hobby. Then upgrade to whatever you want.

totally agree with this, as a relative novice you should not be worrying about the small differences plastic v's glass will make to your beer. Once you are brewing beer you enjoy that is the battle won, once you start to take iot more seriously you can then look at tweaking your process and equipment to give you those small improvements.

I ferment in a plastic bucket and secondary in a plastic carboy, my beer tastes great :rockin: