Ferment in Plastic or Glass?

All my knowledge is from books (almost done with American Sours) so your well ahead of me. So take that into account with my next comments.

I have been wondering lately about aging in glass vs plastic. One of my take aways from reading is that aging in barrels can provide micro oxygenation, which can provide things like small amounts of acetic character, which is good in low threshold levels. I kept thinking to myself as I was reading how a home brewer would get these subtle flavors if aging in glass. Sounds as if small barrels provide too much oxygen and glass none, so maybe plastic is the happy medium? Something I hope to experiment for myself soon. Be interesting to do a split batch between plastic/glass/5g barrel and see the differences. A long wait to see the differences, but in the end who knows, maybe blended together they are the best

Back to the OPs original question, I still feel like it has no "right" answer. Plastic is cheap and safe, glass gives you visibility into the fermenting wort and is arguably less oxygen permeable, but I still love my stainless bucket with its attachments/gadgets and use it for all my primary fermentations.

 

Small barrels and glass carboys of the same size provide for about the same amount of oxygen ingress. As do PET carboys. Plastic BUCKETS are the issue. There is a chart in Wild Brews from Jeff Sparrow that I can post, if you like, that shows the ingress in different vessels.

 

Im always down to read more info, thanks. I've always read that one has to be careful of smaller barrels due to the increased surface area and they ingress more oxygen due to thinner staves as well. I would be curious to see how he collected the data, as it seems strange to me that glass carboy with airlock would have similar oxygen ingress as a barrel.

 

I use plastic for almost all my beers -- usually Big Mouth Bubblers. I recently bought a PET carboy for some long-term aging beers I want to do.

I do own some 1-gallon glass carboys and a single 3-gallon glass carboy for smaller batches, but I generally try to avoid glass because I'm paranoid about shattering it and gashing my leg open.

 

I'm a devoted plastic bucket user for beer. I'm not unfamiliar with glass carboys at all since I have a six gallon glass carboy that I use for wine.

I can't imagine using a glass carboy on a more regular basis. Potential breaking, potential injury, slipperiness when wet, weight, difficulty in moving, difficulty in cleaning, are all huge negatives for me.

 

It's slide 18.

From a 2007 AHA conference presentation by Vinnie Cilurzo

 

Up to 2 years so far for a sour and a brett saison...no off flavors from any of them.

 

Is this your experience or are you just repeating something you read in a book? This is not what I've seen in my experiences and I've talked to many others that do the same thing with no issues at all with buckets.

 

Personally, I've never used a plastic bucket to ferment sour or brett beer. That said, it is a fact that they let in more oxygen than do other fermenters. As I said in my earlier post, I am very sure that people can produce good beer in plastic buckets. I simply think that of you're going to age your beer that doing so in a plastic bucket is not a "best practice" and I choose to employ as many best practices as I can in my brewing and fermenting, as that leads to more consistent end-products.

 

Just experimented w/ a NE style session IPA where I brewed 12 gallons (6 fermented in glass carboy and 6 in plastic bucket both next to each other in a temp controlled ferm chamber). I assumed there would be a perceivable difference due to fermenter geometry, but so far in a couple blind tastings no one has been able to detect a difference.

 

This is really only applicable on a large, commercial scale, but it's interesting anecdotal evidence that you found no difference. Kind of an exBEERiment, of sorts.

 

plastic carboy or stainless for me. i like my hands.

 

Although I've heard a lot of horror stories, I've been brewing for more than 13 years, almost exclusively with glass carboys, and I've never dropped one.

conspicuously turns and knocks on something wooden

 

Man, that's like having sex first in an 80's horror movie...guaranteed to (have a carboy) die soon!

 

What you are stating there is not correct.

Below is a discussion I posted previously which ‘quantifies’ the amount of oxygen permeability of various material via an oxygen permeability coefficient. The lower the value of the O2 permeability coefficient the less permeable the material is to O2 diffusion.

“I think you will agree with me that for Phase 2 there is a large differential in the oxygen concentration between the outside and inside of the bucket. So, let’s discuss oxygen permeability of the bucket. There was some discussion about the integrity of the bucket lid seal. I obtain a very good seal with my bucket so I am not too concerned about that aspect. What I ‘question’ is the amount of oxygen ingress directly through the plastic material. As I am sure you are aware, a solid still has lots of ‘open space’ and this ‘open space’ permits the oxygen molecules to pass through the bucket wall. Oxygen permeability is characterized by O2 permeability coefficient. Below are some examples for various materials; the units of the O2 permeability coefficient are cm3 mm/m2 day Atm 20° - 25°C:

• Better Bottle Polyethylene Terephthalate – PET: < 1

• Typical Bucket High Density Polyethylene HDPE: 44 -91

• Low Density Polyethylene LDPE: 98 – 138

• Butyl Rubber: 132-141

• Silicone Rubber (dimethylsilicone): 40700

So, you can see that from an O2 permeability coefficient perspective that a HDPE plastic bucket is much more oxygen permeable than a Better Bottle (or glass carboy or keg).”

That is the case for a Better Bottle since it uses a special form of PET:

“BetterBottle PET fermentation carboys were introduced to the home winemaking and brewing markets in the Spring of 2003, as safe and easily handled alternatives to glass carboys, and they have been widely used to ferment and bulk age excellent wines and beers ever since. They are made of special virgin PET and they are made in a manner that packs the plastic molecules very tightly and creates a delicate balance between microcrystaline and amorphous regions.1 The success of the BetterBottle PET fermentation carboys and fittings is empirical evidence that they have extremely low permeability for oxygen; however, it is now possible to make direct measurements.”

http://www.better-bottle.com/technical.html

Cheers!

 

Agreed though I've only been using one for a year now. Its glass so yeah be careful to not drop it but that's really quite easy to avoid as they really aren't that slippery or heavy when empty and if its full of beer I have a carrier to make sure its secured.

I switched to glass after my original bucket started getting yellow. Still use the bucket for a few batches when I am overcrowded and it works just fine but the glass is so much easier to keep clean and scratch fee. Plus its always nice to see the yeast at work to see the progress.

 

Now you've cursed yourself.

Do report back once you're all stitched up and have finished receiving your blood transfusion.

 

Sorry about that. Let us know.

 

Glass v Plastic is as old a thread as BA (and rocks) ...also:

Whole Cone v pellets
Dry v liquid yeast
Primary v secondary
Fast cool v extended whirlpool
Spigot v racking
Ghetto cooler v digital temp controller
Closed xfer v vented xfer

I'm getting tired...anyone help me out with a few more? TIA