I am pretty new here and to home brewing, but from everything I have read on the internet what follows is my understanding (Because if it's on the internet it has to be true):
Glass Carboys:
Pros according to those who use them:
- Blessed by the Gods of Olympus as the only vessel that is capable of fermenting the superior beers that only a home brewer can appreciate the subtle flavors of (like angel farts, unicorn drool and victoria's secret model sweat)
- Superior in every way (including the complex you develop that allows you to laud it over the heads of those in your homebrew club who still use plastic buckets and "Butter Bottles")
Cons according those who have never used them:
- Forged at the base of Mt. Doom by Orcs and Dragons using the bones of babies and the blood of nuns
- Each one comes with a time delay self destruct device that is guaranteed to explode during any of the following situations:
1) Moving from car to home
2) Temperature Variations from hot to cold, or cold to hot, or tepid to
lukewarm
3) Pouring Wort in, racking wort out, brewing near carboy, thinking about
brewing near carboy, thinking about buying glass carboy
Plastic Buckets:
Pros according to those who use them:
- Hand Crafted by the delicate hands of blind and deaf virgin women who are the offspring of the 1986 Swedish Bikini team and Fabio
- Inexpensive, easy to come by, and rated 5 Stars by the National Highway Safety Administration in both frontal and side impact collisions.
- So safe and airtight that the next space mission will be using them instead of Specially designed cargo containers
- So safe that Parenting Magazine has recommended that new parents seal their newborns in them for the first 18 Months of life (secondary optional after the first 6 months) *warning this method will produce a lot of trub
Cons by those who are far too superior to use them:
- Manufactured by cult members in W. Virginia from a combination of cow dung and botulism
- If scratched, demons from another dimension are released from the scratches and they can never be sealed and will forever haunt your beer and those who drink it. The only cure is to repent and pray at the alter of super heated and blown silicon...
- Contain wormholes that magically transport Oxygen molecules from Los Angeles into your beer
Better Bottles:
Pros by those who have been blessed with an opportunity to use them:
- Created by a distant and superiorly intelligent Alien race from materials that are far more advanced than mere mortals should be allowed to use.
- Lighter than a feather, faster than a speeding CO2 bubble, able to withstand falls from a 12 story building without so much as scratch on it or any bystanders who happen to be blessed by it hitting them in the head.
Cons by those who will never use them because they sound too good to be true like unicorns, leprechauns and regular bowel movements:
- Made as a byproduct of a pact with the devil that MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice made to launch their strangely successful (albeit short lived) careers.
- It's mother was a hamster and it's father smelt of elderberries
- Will melt in the face of sheer determination and wort hotter than room temperature
- Will become brittle and explode into a million pieces if you use any sanitizer in it for more than 5 seconds