Creative Head Space Solutions

What creative ideas are you all using to fill the head space in your carboys? What is the most water you would ever add to a gallon or 5 gal batch?

I like the idea of adding glass marbles or SS ball bearings, although I don't have either one handy.

Just make up some show mead and top off as needed. It is easy enough to have a few 1 gallon batches sitting around

GilaMinumBeer said:

I fill my headspace with a complex mixture of 78.08% N2, 20.95% O2, 0.93% Ar, 0.03% CO2, and 0.002% Ne Plus lesser amounts of Methane, Helium, Krypton, Hydrogen, Xenon.

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Commonly referred to as "air"

weirdboy said:

I like the idea of adding glass marbles or SS ball bearings, although I don't have either one handy.

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Adding steel bearings to a glass carbouy is really a bad idea, you run the very real risk of breaking the carbouy.

I don't even use marbles, I just top up or blanket with CO2. Both are cheap, easy & effective ways to deal with excess headspace. Regards, GF.

Sometimes, I use some neutral white wine, or vodka if I want to boost the alcohol for some reason, which usually happens when I throw away too much lees if I use fruit. I get paranoid of anything I need to age for long that is below 12%, since I don't use sulfites in my must.

If you want to blanket with CO2 but you don't have a keg system, you can drop a few pieces of dry ice into your carboy before siphoning in your mead. Be sure to let the carboy warm back up before you put any room-temperature liquid in so it doesn't crack.

Some grocery stores carry dry ice; I get it at Safeway for about $1/lb. It subliminates pretty quickly, even if you keep it in the freezer, so it is wise to buy what you need on the day you need it.

Dry ice results in CO2 that's safe to have in beverages of an alcoholic nature?

Could dry ice be used as a carbonation method then, for folks who don't have a kegging apparatus and want sweeter and sparkling things?

Im sure Dry ice wont have any effect with or without Alcohol in the picture, but if you were to put the smallest piece of dry ice into a bottle...for one, the reaction is a little bit violent, and if you were to get it capped im sure that it would be too much Co2 and burst the bottle...if it doesnt freeze the small amount of beer first.....Maybe if you were to do it in a keg (rated to 130 PSI) this might work as a carbing substitute, but there is no way to measure the Volumes of Carbination.
sorry for being off topic.

See here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/dry-ice-carbonation-video-29448/

Carbonating with dry ice is a terrible idea. JoeCmb's suggestion is somewhat practical (using an open/vented container).