Dilemna: Buy another carboy? Buy another pale? Both?

[Rook]

Guys, I've currently got 1 plastic pale, 6.5 gallons I believe, and I use it as my primary fermenter and a bottling bucket. I also have a 5 gallon carboy that I use as a secondary.
When I brew I ferment in the pale for a week, rack to the carboy for 2 weeks, then transfer to the pale and bottle from there.

Problem is, my bucket doesn't have a spigot on it. This makes starting the siphon to bottle a messy process, and there is the definate potentail for germ exposure. (its only a problem here becuase I have a carboy cap that I can use to start siphons from or to the carboy).

If I had a spigot on my ale pale, I could take samples without opening up the system, as well as start a siphon from there by gravity only.

but, if I had another carboy, I could have 2 brews going at the same time, OR, I could use the extra carboy to bottle from, being able to use the carboy cap.

The plastic pale with a spigot is about 17 or 18 bucks I think, the carboy is 25. I'm tempted to get both, replace my primary pale and still get an extra carboy....

 

[ill.literate]

Why not get a bottling bucket and another carboy (Better Bottle)?

Is there any reason why you want to replace your pail as the primary fermentor? Hang onto that, use it as a primary, rack to one carboy, then clean the pail and start a new batch or pitch on top of the cake on the pail if you can.

Then you can rack the second batch to your second carboy. And you'll only have to wait one week to bottle the first batch generally.

 

[Pumbaa]

put a spigot in the bucket you got for bottling and buy another carboy . . . cant ever have too many carboys

 

[Blender]

I would go for the carboy or Better Bottle, then buy a spigot for $4.00 and convert the pail to a bottling bucket. I like to put the primaries in a water bath for temperature control and I just never felt safe using it with the bottling bucket\fermenter that I started out with.