carboy not quite full

Hi all after transfering from primary to secondary i found out that the carboy is about 2 litres from the top. Now i know that it will water down the beer if you add water to fill. My question is what do i do now??

Thanks

I would not add water to it, it will be fine. There should be no problem with the headspace if that is your concern.

Yes it is said to be a bit short, but leave it as is. You don't always get exactly 5 gallons. There are always losses in the trub and transfers.

With the air space will not make the beer flat? I leave the beer in there for about 2 weeks at about 55 degrees F the bottle right

The beer should be flat at this point. It doesn't carbonate until after you add suger and bottle.

Leave it be.
That's normal, look at some of the pictures of other brewers be in fermenters.

You don't want it full or it can cause other problems.

how many gallons is your secondary? when I bought my setup the lady at the HBS told me to use a smaller secondary(5gal) than my primary(6.5gal) to eliminate the exact problem that you're having.

I have an 8 gallon primary and a 6 gallon carboy. lost some during racking due to the yeast sediment

I have the same problem right now with an amber ale, When I added water to bring the level up to five gallons I went to the bottom of the duct tape rather than the top like I had measured to. I guess I really don't see the problem with adding water to the secondary, You started out adding enough ingredients to do five gallons of beer so wouldn't not adding water make the beer extra concentrated? Maybe I am missing something? What do all you pros do to avoid this problem?

What problem? Oxidation? i wouldn't worry about that. Your beer will degass naturally and keep a protective layer of CO2 on top of the surface of the beer.

Sorry, what i meant was how do you avoid the problem of coming up short of five gallons, in the secondary, trub and yeast seem to take up some of the original volume?

Not sure about everyone else, but I usually do come up a bit short of five gallons. My brews only yield about 48 bottles (4.5gal). The liquid you left in the trub also had all the good stuff; so adding water is diluting your beer.

Yeah, maybe add 5.25 gallons to start with huh?

This rule against having no head space in the secondary goes a long way back and I used to follow it slavishly by always topping off with sterile water or making my batch to 5.5 gallons (thus changing the recipe). Then one day I thought, "Hey, I always get a little bump in fermentation after I rack, and since CO2 is heavier than air, the CO2 is going to force out any air." Now I don't worry about it.

I think this rule comes from homebrewers being petrified of oxidation and rightly so. Its one of the things we really can't control with our non-industrial setups. Oxidation is bad, but in this case I think the threat is negligable. Others might disagree.

I have a related question. I made a mistake when brewing the wort (a honey weitzen) and only brought it to 4.5 gallons. I'm sharing this batch with a friend and we both would like to get a full case out of it. I will rack to secondary in a couple of days, and I am thinking of adding at least a half gallon of sterilized water, just to stretch the wort a bit.
Is this a bad idea for any reason?
I am not really concerned about the gravity as it started a little on the high side for a honey weitzen -- 1.059. My friend likes lighter beers and I wouldn't mind the contrast for the other recipes in my cellar. So I'm not concerned about it becoming too thin.
The only downside I can see is something I got from Papazian -- he says changing the environment in the wort abruptly can cause yeasts to rupture.
Seems to me my risk from this is fairly low, particularly if I were to rack the beer on top of the water in the secondary. The yeasts in the first part of the rack would have a shock, but the rest probably wouldn't notice.
I could pitch new yeast in the secondary to make sure there's enough to finish it and carbonate in the bottles.
What do you think? Any feedback would be most welcome.
-Hrangil

Your beer should be fermented by the time it gets to a secondary so adding water would not necessitate the need for more yeast. I would make sure the beer has finished fermenting out before moving it to a second tank.

A secondary is for clearing up a brew but you know with a wheat beer that probably isn't needed. Your choice.

If you want to end up with 5 gallons in secondary or bottles..you need to do a 5.5 gallon recipe.. No matter how you make the beer some is lost in trub, hops, ect..usually about .25 to .5 gallons..Most all grain recipes I make they are at 5.5 gallons or 11 gallons, this puts closer to 5 gallons into the keg or bottles. If you add water, all you do is water the beer down..not good.

Jay

I agree that I would rather not top off. Just brew a larger batch. As the others said, adding 10% to your batch size usually gets you where you want to be in the end.

Hrangil, if you want to top off with boiled and cooled water, go ahead. As the others said, your fermentation should be complete or very nearly so, by the time you get to the secondary, and I doubt the volume you want to add with cause signficant problems with your yeast.


TL

Thanks Blender, discgolfin and TexLaw for your comments.
FWIW, I plan to infuse the honey weitzen with zest of lemon in the secondary, so I definitely plan to rack it. I think I will add boiled water at that time to stretch the batch. I'm not concerned about it getting watered down; beer is mostly water anyway.
(On a related note, I am amazed at how long the primary is taking to finish. It still has about a 3/4 inch head of krausen and is very cloudy after almost a week in the primary. Yeast: White Labs Hefeweitzen, temp ~72 F.)
-Hrangil