Good idea for purging with C02?

I recently racked my caramel apple mead off of the vanilla beans and my volume is somewhere between 4 and 4.5 gallons. My answer to purge the headspace of air was to mix baking soda with vinegar to create C02 and then run it into the carboy prior to racking so that as the mead filled, it pushed C02 out and my headspace should be C02 rather than air.(At least in theory) Will this work or did I just blow smoke(C02) up my ***?

Interesting idea but I personally wouldn't put vinegar anywhere near my mead.

Even if it did work, how are you going to continually refill the headspace?

You want to top up the mead to the very top, about an inch from the bung, to prevent oxidation. Either that, or use a 3 gallon carboy and a 1 gallon carboy.

Or you can use marbles to reduce the amount of headspace.

In theory it seems correct but you have to ask yourself it is worth the risk? I cant recall the exact chemical reaction equation but I would guess you would end up with excess of one of the chemicals and that can't be good for your mead.

Purging a keg to age in or topping off is what I would do. Marbles seemed to be an expensive alternative and you would lose some product when racking as they do not fit together perfectly.

I've used a small CO2 canister to purge headspace when aging beer.
The kind they use for BB guns. They also make a unit that they plug into for dusting electronics that lets you control the flow. I would just pop one and point it into the carboy, but one of those dusters would be very handy.

yer waaaaay too worried about that headspace. I never top off with CO2, or use sulfites to block oxidation.

I have 11 year old mead that will prove that oxidation is not THAT much of a risk. Yes, it can happen...if you carelessly splash your mead all over the place when racking.

Malkore, you have 11 year old mead that was bottled without sulfites? I'm both impressed and intrigued.

Malkore,
Thanks for that input. My gut feeling was that we make more to do of oxidation than we need to, but to hear it from someone else eases my mind a bit. If care is taken doing any routine task with brewing, then I think you minimize errors significantly

DaveAllen said:

Malkore, you have 11 year old mead that was bottled without sulfites? I'm both impressed and intrigued.

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actually, 6 bottles of two different meads. one's a sweet mead, the other a raspberry melomel. both are divine nectar at this point, and its hard to open them and drink them. At this point i've had them for a third of my life, 3 rental units and two houses!

klyph said:

I've used a small CO2 canister to purge headspace when aging beer.
The kind they use for BB guns. They also make a unit that they plug into for dusting electronics that lets you control the flow. I would just pop one and point it into the carboy, but one of those dusters would be very handy.

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I've seen discussions about using BB gun canisters before, and they aren't always food grade (contain petroleum lubricants or something). But food grade ones do exist, and I've heard of people doing this method before, so it can be done.

get CO2 chargers for selzter water bottles. williams and northern brewer stock them.