Justibone
Well-Known Member
Ahh.. I guess I figured carboys seemed popular among a lot of brewers. Why do you think it's overkill... because it's really heavy and expensive for just fermenting? If that's the case, I think I do see your point - it's much cheaper to get some plastic buckets.
Carboys are a lot harder to clean and to work with in general. Which is easier to pour hot, sticky liquid into: a basketball hoop or a golf hole? Basketball hoop = bucket, golf hole = carboy.
Also, buckets are often an *order of magnitude* cheaper than carboys -- but if you get one free then it is *infinitely* cheaper (well, I guess it would actually be undefined cheaper, since you can't divide by zero -- whatever, the point stands).
One thing.. I do like smaller batches (2.5-3 gallons). Can you ferment a 2.5 gallon batch inside a 7 gallon bucket? Is that too much headspace.. or does headspace in the fermenter not even matter?
I mainly brew 3 gallon batches in 7 gallon buckets and I've never had an issue. There's enough CO2 to still bubble the airlock, so there's plenty of nice, heavy CO2 to push the nasty, light O2 right out of there.
For secondary I use my wine-making carboy. That is, I *would* use it... but I've never secondaried a beer. When I did a smaller batch of apfelwein in my carboy I dropped a couple small pieces of dry ice in. A few grams of dry ice turns into a dozen liters of CO2, and pieces that small sublimate (solids don't evaporate) nearly instantaneously.
C = 12g/mole
O = 16g/mole
CO2 = 44g/mole
1 mole gas = 22.4 L
3 gal = 11.3 L ~ 22g dry ice (about 4 nickels' worth of weight)
If you use CO2 to fill the headspace on your carboy, you might make sure you don't seal the top until the gas has sublimated... or else it could be "energetic" in your airlock.