Turn a 3 gal Carboy into 2.5 w/ Glass Marbles?

Has any tried or thought of this before? Using marbles to fill the carboy or raise the level. (Take up air)

I was thinking I have a 3 gallon carboy and I have 2.5 gallons of beer to rack over to the secondary. Most likely the last 1/2 gallon will be purged with the remaining CO2 that comes off the last bit of fermentation.

What if I added glass marbles to 2ndary before racking, so many as to take up the volume of that last 1/2 gallon?

Glass marbles would sanitize well, I think...

I wonder how the yeast would settle out? On top of the marbles or down under neath them?

What are your thoughts?

I know Lorena has suggested that in the past for winemaking

If my math is right:

A 1/2" diameter marble would need 3606 marbles for a gal or 1803 for 1/2 gal.

A 3/4" diameter marble would need 1068 & 534

I don't know how big a marble would be?


Just think if you ever see one of those contests to guess how many marbles in a jar you could win!!!!

For an ale, I don't think you need to worry about it. Just purge with CO2 before racking and again after you seat the lid.

It's a bigger concern with wine.

What really got me thinking about is I have a lager going at day 7 right now. Its at about 59'F and the lager yeast is at a slow pace. (I pitched superior dry lager yeast.) It was never going hard to say the least. I'm thinking of moving it over while its still at work. Probably tomorow. I can see some settling taking place.

I normally like use an "S" style air lock however this time I used the traditional cup & stem air lock. The one with the floating thimble-like top.

I rarely use it, because I think it bubbles less frequently but passes bigger bubbles.

The slow pace and the extra air space is why I thought about this.

I'll pop my other S-lock on tomorrow after I rack it over and see if the speed picks up.

My last lager took 19 days, but that was around 50F.

Schlenkerla said:

Just think if you ever see one of those contests to guess how many marbles in a jar you could win!!!!

Click to expand...

Do you win the marbles? Also have you taken into account the diameter of your carboy opening to ensure you can get the newly won marbles in?

I've heard sanitized marbles offered as advice but i've never known anyone either actually use them or wish they'd used them when brewing.
I'd relax and continue brewing as you were - No worries!

Nope, I have never won marbles or lost 'em for that matter. I don't even play with marbles.

I had this idea awhile back, went to wal-mart looking for them and concluded that kids don'y play with marbles anymore. They didn't have any. That was probably a good thing!

The CO2 will clear the air out as long as the yeast is not pooped out yet. I don't think it is at this time.

In contrast to the last few batches the yeast & airlock go gangbusters. Again thats using the other airlock.

Probabl quite a bit fewer marbles than that. The marbles will have space between them, the combined volume of 10 marbles will be much smaller than the space they actually take up.

But I wouldn't worry about that small of a headspace. If it hasn't been transfered before, there should still be some CO2 in solution unless it's been sitting in the primary for several months, but you'll have other issues then. If you have a CO2 cylinder, you can give it a little blast before transfering.

My anxiety also stems form the fact that I pitched my starter into the fermenter when it was off by 10 degrees.

I added ice cold water to the fermentor, then topped off with it too. The fermentor was below 58'F. No chance for DMS here. I had to let it warm up for more than an hour. I had it closed up sitting on the air vent.

~ 65F for the wort 75F starter

It had 1"of foam 18 hours later but now its thin and settling with small yeast floaties on top.

Now that I think about it I'm pretty sure its OK. The only thing I will do next is rack over to my secondary.

I also forgot the gravity is lower on this batch too. This is my third lager and the lowest (gravity & temp) to date, so it makes sense the activity is slower.