I have always used plastic carboys for my homebrewing. The first was a plastic bucket. After that came the PET plastic carboys that are shown in the Northern Brewer video below.
The PET carboy is easy to clean because it is hydrophobic, so a soaking solution of Five Star’s PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash) usually does the trick to clean up the fermenter. They are easy to grip when wet and much easier to lift when full and wet. And, because they are unbreakable (e.g. pouring hot wort into a cold carboy is not a concern for shattering a plastic carboy, but is for glass), they provide one less reason to go to the local emergency room.
So, I am a bit prejudiced on which carboy you should use. Here’s Northern Brewers take on the pro and cons of each:
Cheers!
Related articles
- Bio-Simplex Carboy Video (bioresearchonline.com)
- My summer: Homebrewing with an engineer (idlamit.wordpress.com)
- an update on the wheaton and son homebrewing experience (wilwheaton.typepad.com)
Batch-22 