You would like to brew your own beer, but you have no idea what type of equipment you will need to use. One of the most important decisions any homebrewer needs to make is whether to use a glass or plastic carboy to ferment their homebrew. There are pros and cons to using either, so let's go over these points.
Many homebrewers started out years ago using plastic food grade buckets for handling and fermenting their homebrew. These brew pails, made by such companies as True Brew, are very cheap and easy to use, however they are very restrictive. The plastic isn't transparent so to view your fermentation you must open the cover of the pail, which increases the risk of contaminating your batch of home brew. Bacteria also likes to hide in the soft plastic walls of these buckets which can easily become scratched and become dirty.
Glass carboys were the next generation of homebrew fermentation vessels. Brewing with glass gives you the advantage of being able to view the beer fermenting because glass is clear. Glass isn't oxygen permeable, so you don't have to worry about any contamination via the glass carboy, and it's easy to monitor the beer through the glass. So long as you don't accidentally break a glass carboy it generally lasts forever, and the glass is not very easily scratched. One of the drawbacks of using glass carboys is that they're heavy. A standard 5 gallon batch of homebrew weighs close to 40 lbs, and with the standard glass carboy weighing close to 20 pounds, you have to haul around quite a lot of weight when it's full. The most significant danger in using glass carboys is that they can break if you bump into anything. Glass does not like severe temperature change, so pouring very warm or cold beer into a glass carboy can cause it to break or shatter. In order to remove home brew you will need to siphon it out.
Better Bottle makes plastic carboys that are pretty new on the homebrewing scene. Made from food grade plastic these are very lightweight. Better Bottle plastic carboys are sold with a spigot at the base for easy transporting of beer without needing to use a siphon. Plastic suggests there's no risk of shattering the carboy by dropping it or filling with hot liquid. The transparent plastic allows for viewing your homebrew, but can be scratched and wear over time requiring replacement. How permeable the plastic is to gas is unknown, so if you have a very strong homebrewed beer that you want to age you will not want to use a plastic carboy. Also if you don't close off the spigot properly you may have problems with leakage.
So should you brew with a glass or plastic carboy? Having brewed with both, I feel that brewing with plastic is much better than brewing with glass. I think plastic is much safer and much easier to handle, and transferring homebrewed beer is very easy with the built-in spigot. However, if I make a very strong home brew that needs to ferment or condition for more than a month, I always transfer the micro brew to a glass carboy. So in conclusion, it's best to have both glass and plastic carboys to use for creating home brew in your own microbrewery.
Many homebrewers started out years ago using plastic food grade buckets for handling and fermenting their homebrew. These brew pails, made by such companies as True Brew, are very cheap and easy to use, however they are very restrictive. The plastic isn't transparent so to view your fermentation you must open the cover of the pail, which increases the risk of contaminating your batch of home brew. Bacteria also likes to hide in the soft plastic walls of these buckets which can easily become scratched and become dirty.
Glass carboys were the next generation of homebrew fermentation vessels. Brewing with glass gives you the advantage of being able to view the beer fermenting because glass is clear. Glass isn't oxygen permeable, so you don't have to worry about any contamination via the glass carboy, and it's easy to monitor the beer through the glass. So long as you don't accidentally break a glass carboy it generally lasts forever, and the glass is not very easily scratched. One of the drawbacks of using glass carboys is that they're heavy. A standard 5 gallon batch of homebrew weighs close to 40 lbs, and with the standard glass carboy weighing close to 20 pounds, you have to haul around quite a lot of weight when it's full. The most significant danger in using glass carboys is that they can break if you bump into anything. Glass does not like severe temperature change, so pouring very warm or cold beer into a glass carboy can cause it to break or shatter. In order to remove home brew you will need to siphon it out.
Better Bottle makes plastic carboys that are pretty new on the homebrewing scene. Made from food grade plastic these are very lightweight. Better Bottle plastic carboys are sold with a spigot at the base for easy transporting of beer without needing to use a siphon. Plastic suggests there's no risk of shattering the carboy by dropping it or filling with hot liquid. The transparent plastic allows for viewing your homebrew, but can be scratched and wear over time requiring replacement. How permeable the plastic is to gas is unknown, so if you have a very strong homebrewed beer that you want to age you will not want to use a plastic carboy. Also if you don't close off the spigot properly you may have problems with leakage.
So should you brew with a glass or plastic carboy? Having brewed with both, I feel that brewing with plastic is much better than brewing with glass. I think plastic is much safer and much easier to handle, and transferring homebrewed beer is very easy with the built-in spigot. However, if I make a very strong home brew that needs to ferment or condition for more than a month, I always transfer the micro brew to a glass carboy. So in conclusion, it's best to have both glass and plastic carboys to use for creating home brew in your own microbrewery.
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