Head space concerns for secondary

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What should I do about the headspace?

  • Ignore the headspace

  • Top off with water

  • Top off with beer

  • Top off with wort


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mf6421

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I brewed my first sour beer about a month ago, and it has been in secondary for about two weeks. I purposely mashed high so the SG after 3 weeks was around 1.016. My main concern is that the beer level goes just up to where the carboy starts to taper in, probably about 3/4 of a gallon from being mostly full.

I'm not too worried about oxidation in the short term because the bugs still had plenty of sugar left, and I haven't opened it up since racking. I plan on adding some oak cubes in a month or so, but I'm not sure if I should bother topping it off with beer or water.

The beer is a pale Belgian ale with dregs from a brett beer, Jolly Pumpkin, and two lambics pitched in the primary. My goal is for it to be fairly balanced between brett flavors and sourness, without any strong acetic flavors. I know different yeast and bacteria thrive in different settings, which makes me think I might want to do something about the head space.
 
BTW, when lambic breweries top off for the angels share, they just use wort...never water, so far as I am aware.
 
I wouldnt worry about that little bit of headspace, most of my beers have quite a bit more than that and they turn out fine
 

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