Fermentors

Some fermentors, like carboys, have very small openings at the top. This can make it very difficult to clean them after use, and make additions a pain. An opening large enough to fit your arm into makes cleaning and additions a snap.

• Food grade plastics are the least expensive, but make excellent fermentors. The one concern with plastic is scratching. A scratch can potentially harbor bacteria or wild yeast that can contaminate your beer.
• Glass fermentors are usually somewhat more expensive than plastic. They are much more scratch resistant, but come with the danger of breaking. Stainless steel can be expensive. However, it is very durable, easy to sanitize, and will likely last you forever.

A drain valve certainly isn’t necessary, but can make it quite convenient to pull a sample for testing specific gravity or for racking your beer for packaging. Conical fermentors usually have a dump valve on the bottom for removing trub and racking.

A flat bottom on on a fermentor works just fine, however a conical bottom has a couple of advantages. Using the dump valve, you can remove the trub from your beer without having to rack to another container. You can also easily package your beer straight from the conical fermentor. For a fermentor with a reverse conical bottom (a cone that comes up into the bottom) you can set your racking cane on the tip of the cone to keep it out of the trub.

You will need an airlock or blow-off tube and possibly a bung.