Fruit addition question

So after reading a few threads about fruit additions (mostly cherries) I see that a tart cherry is better than a sweet one in meads.

That being said, I have a 2.5 gal batch of orange blossom mead that I zested and squeezed 3 blood oranges into when warming the water to mix with the honey. Now that I'm about to rack, I see that my slight addition didn't affect the flavor at all. I'd like to rack this off on to ~2lb blood orange pulp and zest and let it secondary on that.

My question is, is that WAY too much? I feel like blood orange is a very dominate flavor and I don't want it to be overwhelmingly orange and tangy, but a nice mix of the blood orange pop with the mellow honey flavors. I'd also love to see some of the blood orange color in it!

What do y'all think?

I'd like to rack this weekend. Anyone got a word for me?

I can't help on amounts, but if your worried about over doing it, just start with a small amount and leave it for a while. You can then rack on to more if it doesn't taste orangey enough for you.

Sounds good. One more question.

There is still a little bit of activity, but it's down to about 1.01. It's about 2.5 gal. If I rack now into a 3 gal carboy, there will be headspace but since there is a small amount of fermentation it should produce enough co2 to prevent oxidation, right?

I'll rack on to the oranges and energizer.

I just don't have the right size carboy to get it close to the top!

If you have something non-metal and non-porous that will fit through your carboy neck, you can just toss it in (sanitize it of course) to take up some volume.

So a balloon? Lol I can just stick it in and blow it up? After sanitization of course

Oops.. That floats... Errr I'll figure something out. Maybe a balloon full of sand lol

You could use a balloon, as long as you have something creating a gas passageway from below it to the airspace at the top, like maybe a straw.

Or a balloon filled with water?

Or I could just get 2, 1 gal carboys and a half gallon, and add dif amounts of orange to each one

The oranges will take up some space anyway?

Very little. I'm going to pulp and juice. Without the pith to hold shape, they will fall apart completely and take up very little space.

I'm pretty sure the amount of space doesn't change just because they fall apart

I just meant that an orange - pith = not much more than simply orange extra pulp

I've seen a bunch of posts on other Mead & Wine Threads about using marbles to reduce head space...

The prob with that is the space between the marbles will take up a ton of the mead. A half gal of marbles will have like 1/8 gal of airspace between them. If it didn't already taste like liquid heaven I wouldn't care... But alas, I have created a jewel among thorns and must savor every drop