Metal VS Plastic Fermenters

[Anathema]

So have been looking around and noticing some use of plastic ferms lately. When pricing out fermenter I was pleasently surprised to find them to be rather cheap. A 150 gallon plastic fer plus stand is 400 dollars(excluding freight) that being said a 125 gallons single walled stainless ferm costs 5 times that(plus extra for pressure lid). So my question is, why start with steel if your on a budget, and are their major differences production/cleaning wise. I know passivation and cleaning cycles are very specific with steel but Oxyclean and Starsan plus very hot water cleans a plastic ferm up quite nice like. Recommendations, explanations or input would be great. Especially from the beer god Nash lol.

[jason.loxton]

I think that 150 gallons will be pushing what you can do with ambient cooling. At that size, if you are planning on using a cold room to keep your fermentation temps in check, the extra conductivity of stainless might come in handy. That said, here's a discussion of inductor tanks on Probrewer (http://discussions.probrewer.com/showth ... rage-tanks" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and Hess Brewing's tale of their success with them (http://hessbrewing.blogspot.ca/2010/06/ ... tivus.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).

[akr71]

Plastic is porous and easily scratched. If you do end up with an infection, your plastic fermenter will be permanently infected. At the 5 gal scale, replacing a bucket is not a huge expense, but for $400, I'd want something a little more durable.

Just my $0.02