New - basics questions

I am a farmer and have access to many left over fruit crops this time of year. I was given a flat of number 2 strawberries the same week i was given some old wine making supplies. Next thing I know Ive got 13 gallons of wine in the basement. Only problem is I know so little about making wine I don't even know what I don't know. As I go making more - im learning what I screwed up on the previous batches. So now Im trying to fix my past mistakes if possible.

My first problem is a reoccuring problem of volume.
The first batch I made - about 1.5 gallons of strawberries - because thats how many strawberries I was given. I didn't realize then that come time to put it in One Gallon carboys - I would have one carboy with way too much head space.

Before I learned about headspace - I made 4 gallons of Blue berry - because thats how many blue berries I got my hands on. In a 5 gallon carboy I again ran into the headspace problem - so I bought 4 -one gallon carboys. Even then I ended up with 3.5 gallons and one carboy half full. At this point I combine the half gal blue berry and half strawberry and just said "we'll see what happens"

Long story short 2 gallons of raspberry in a 2 gallon primary turned into 1.5 in the secondary (take out displacement of fruit in mesh bag). And again have a partially full carboy.

So what do I do? Pour out the partial carboys. Just mix up partials? As I re-rack, what do I top off with? watering it down seems like a bad idea. I tried juicing more strawberries to top that off at one point...

6 gallon primary - 6 gallons of peach wine turned into One 5-gal carboy and half a One gal Carboy.....

Fill me in here - what do I not know?

Ok...what you need to do is have on hand one gal three gal five gal and six gal carboys. If do not have that on hand some people get marbles santiz them and use that to fill in head space. Also once you get a supply of wine take some like wine from previous year and add to carboy. I have even used fifth wine bottles with small stoppers.

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Mix and enjoy.

I thought about the marbles but how tough is it to siphon between them when you rack?

I was given 3 five gallon carboys so im covered there. But at the store a 1 gallon carboy is just under 5 bucks and a 3 gallon carboy is pushing 30 - I went ahead and bought 3 one gallon carboys instead. Why do they not make a two gallon carboy?

No market for them. Get some stoppers that fit in wine bottles and use the bigger bottles. Also can use plastic one gal or 1/2 gal jugs for short storage...

does anyone have any experience with the marble trick?

Sanitized marbles will take up space in the bottle decreasing the amount exposed to air. You can get them inexpensively at a craft store.

what do you do come time to siphon out the wine?
there a trick to it?

I tape my hose to a stainless steel tube. It will slide into the voids pretty easily.

perfect

Here are some shown in use . . .

https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=22519