Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Because the wine stays in contact with the secondary
fermenter for months or even years, this is best made of glass.
You can also use specially made oak casks for long secondary
fermentation, but these are very expensive and need special
care and maintenance. So for now, I would skip the oak casks.
The glass vessels come in various sizes from one gallon up to
five gallons. The smaller one-gallon vessels are just
one-gallon jugs, and the larger three- or five-gallon vessels
are glass carboys used on water coolers.
You will also see some plastic carboys available in
winemaking magazines and from various suppliers. These are
advertised as being made in a way that makes them
impervious to the diffusion of the plastic into the wine, and
they offer the advantage of being much lighter than glass so
the shipping costs are lower. Nevertheless, plastic is harder to
clean than glass, so I would not recommend these if glass can
be obtained instead.
One- and five-gallon primary and secondary fermenters.
You will also need to get a special brush for cleaning your jug
or carboy because the opening is too small for even the
