1 gal. short in a 5 gal car boy when racking to secondary

slowjerk · Mar 3, 2011

Hi guys,

I made a 4 gallon batch of welch's wine in a 5 gallon bucket and now I'm racking to the secondary but the car boy is 5 gallons, leaving me a bunch of air in the car boy. Should I fill it up with water or something or is it OK to leave as is?

WIP · Mar 3, 2011

Does it still have a good amount of CO2 in it? If so, rack it and the CO2 might create a protective layer. However, you may want to do what you can to bottle it as soon as it is clear.

slowjerk · Mar 3, 2011

no, it hardly has any CO2 left in it

pkeeler · Mar 3, 2011

Fill it with something solid or with wine. Don't fill it with water. People use marbles (aquarium safe). You are going to have a lot of room, because you will probably only get 3.5 gal. out of the original 4. You could get a 3 gal. carboy and a 1 gal. jug. Some people leave the room then flush with an inert gas like argon.

slowjerk · Mar 3, 2011

I'll try to fix it. If I leave that much air in the top it's going to ruin the wine I suppose

slowjerk · Mar 3, 2011

Added a 4 liter bottle of chardonnay to it and crossed my fingers. I think that can only improve the Welch's wine

Yooper · Mar 3, 2011

I would have racked to a three gallon carboy, with a one gallon jug as the second fermenter. You always want to "match" the batch size to the carboy in secondary, but topping it up with wine is fine also!

slowjerk · Mar 3, 2011

It's my first batch and I'm learning a lot. My next batch will hopefully match the secondary when I rack it.

1 gal. short in a 5 gal car boy when racking to secondary

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1 gal. short in a 5 gal car boy when racking to secondary

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