The plastic drum not the wooden barrel (Thats an RIS going in)
A few people use carboys or better bottles etc, and even fewer stainless conicals - you guys in America can get conicals cheap compared to us !!
All this palaver about plastic being more susceptible to infection ... all blown out of proportion as far as I am concerned. I have been brewing in these things for many years.. no issue. So have thousands of other brewers. I still have and still use, the very first fermenter I bought when I was 19 years old... 20 years ago. It has seen a couple of infections in that time.. but guess what??? I sanitised it extra well, and it was fine.
The plastic conicals that the OP posted a link to - if we could get them for $57 bucks.... that would be what I'd use, and probably a hell of a lot of other brewers I know too. One or two keen brewers who want conicals but haven't got piles of cash lying around (my HBS sells a 12G uninsulated, non controlled conical {I think they are actually More Beer conicals} for $1050.00 and they aren't all that far from the norm) have used similar plastic conicals to the OPs post and saved themselves a stack - while still getting all the functionality. But the nearest thing I have seen to that available here, was still $300 or so.
For $57 I cant understand why you aren't all using them - mind you I cant understand carboys either; mad, dangerous, hard to use things.
I might see how much it costs to ship those things.. I can probably import one cheaper than I can buy it here.
Thirsty
