Wine Making Accessory: 5 Gallon Glass Carboy

When you’re in the process of purchasing all of your winemaking equipment, it can be easy to assume that fermenters are an afterthought. Yet to purchase a fermenter without checking out all of your options would be a rookie mistake. After all, your wine spends much of the fermentation process transforming within this all-important vessel. This is particularly true of the secondary fermenter, where wine ferments for about three weeks.  Typically, a secondary fermenter is either a glass or plastic carboy. So how can you tell which is really the better option?

Plastic carboys can be cheaper, but they’re not really the best choice. You’ll get more bang for your buck with a glass carboy. This is first and foremost because glass is much easier to sanitize than plastic. That is mainly because plastic gets lots of tiny nicks and scratches in it over time. Those scratches create tiny, difficult to see nooks and crannies where bacteria will happily thrive and proliferate. That means that you’ll have to scrub extra hard and very thoroughly every time you sanitize a plastic carboy, especially since you can’t tell where every single little scratch is. That means you’re spending significantly more time on the sanitization process than you would with a glass carboy. Sanitization is very important, of course. If your carboy isn’t as clean as it should be, bacteria or other similarly nasty things can spoil your wine before it evens makes it into the bottle.

The other huge advantage of using a glass carboy as opposed to a plastic one is that you don’t have to worry about glass leeching any chemicals. Though plastic carboys are food grade and shouldn’t be a problem, the only way to be one hundred percent certain you’re not taking a risk is to go with glass. Chemicals like BPA (Bisphenol-A) that leech from certain kinds of plastic have gotten a lot of attention in recent years. BPA is an endocrine disruptor which can act like hormones and cause negative health effects in humans.  You definitely don’t want it or any other similarly nasty chemicals found in plastic to get in your wine.  Some people also feel that plastic containers can alter the flavor of whatever they’re holding, especially if the contents within sit in those containers for long periods of time. This is yet another problem that you won’t have to fret over if you stick with glass.

If you’re looking for a great glass carboy, the 5 Gallon Glass Carboy is the way to go. It can be used for both winemaking and brewing beer, whether you’re talking about fermenting the wine and beer or aging your wine. It has a small mouth that works perfectly with a #7 size stopper. Its five gallon capacity is a great size for home winemakers, too—not too small, not too large. Use this glass carboy, and you won’t have to worry about sneaky bacteria surviving the sanitization process, chemicals getting into your wine, or any other pesky issues related to plastic. It doesn’t hurt that this carboy looks pretty classy sitting in your wine cellar. Glass may seem a bit old school compared to plastic, but if it’s worked for other vintners down through the years, you can bet it will work for you.  Besides, you wouldn’t drink your wine out of a plastic cup, so why let it ferment and develop inside a plastic carboy?