6.5 gallon bucket for 2 gallon batch?

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Capn_Bill

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Thoughts on using 6.5 gallon buckets to primary ferment a 2 gallon batch? I want to do some smash trials without buying smaller fermenters. I don't plan to secondary, so I'm hoping that the yeast will produce enough co2 so that the headspace isn't an issue.
 
You'll be fine if you do primary only. I do 3 gallon batches in my 6.5 gallon bucket all the time.
 
It would probably be fine but that is a lot of headspace to contend with. A couple other options come to mind:

1) If you have a CO2 tank, you could purge the headspace before putting the lid on the fermenter.

2) You could also put something in the bucket to displace the volume such as sanitized marbles so there is less headspace.

3) You could ferment in a couple 1 gallon plastic water/milk jugs or 2 gallon if you can find them for cheap.

Or just don't worry about it, ferment in the 6.5g bucket and see how it turns out.
 
Thanks slowbie. My understanding is a lot of headspace

I should add that I only take one FG reading on bottling day (provided it falls in an expected range). By only opening it once, the headspace doesn't really matter, because fermentation pushes the oxygen out, and the only time it has a chance to get back in is while I'm bottling.
 
slowbie said:
I should add that I only take one FG reading on bottling day (provided it falls in an expected range). By only opening it once, the headspace doesn't really matter, because fermentation pushes the oxygen out, and the only time it has a chance to get back in is while I'm bottling.

Good point. I'll keep that in mind. I assume that the fermentation takes a similar amount of time, assuming an equal ratio of yeast to a typical 5 gallon? Maybe for a pale ale with us05, let it go for 2 weeks to be safe?
 
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