What makes a good secondary?

So I was in a kitchen supply joint this afternoon looking around and saw something interesting...there in the store is this little 2-gallon jar with a very heavy glass lid w/ rubber gasket. It felt heavy enough to hold out air, but would probably lift up a smidge to let out any excess pressure from any remaining co2 production. I still use my little 2-gallon Mr. Beer rig for experimental recipes and small batch schtuff. Sound feasible? I'd really love to have a few smaller secondaries for small batch work, because I'm under the impression that there is just too much airspace in a brewers bucket, too much potential for disaster.

Thanks for the tips

A 3 gallon carboy, bung, and airlock can be yours for about $20. That'll be much less likely to get contaminated than the big jar than you describe.

Or just buy 5 gallon keg for $15 and use it as a secondary, it will also make first step toward kegging your beer.

Or buy some apple juice in gallon jugs, make cider, drink, reuse. The ones I have take a carboy cork.

Where are you getting corny's for $15?!?

Aaah, I was under the impression that it was desirable to hve as little air as possible in the secondary, so was looking at something as close as possible to total volume. Thanks

jackle said:

Where are you getting corny's for $15?!?

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http://www.homebrewing.org/5-Gallon-Cornelious-Keg-Ball-Lock_p_0-70.html

I've had the same question about too much head space in secondary. Somebody I know suggested filling part of the space with sanitized glass marbles.

Has anybody tried doing something like this?

fvl306 said:

I've had the same question about too much head space in secondary. Somebody I know suggested filling part of the space with sanitized glass marbles.

Has anybody tried doing something like this?

Click to expand...

No offence to anyone who does this but that sounds like a really bizarre idea. I just purge the deadspace with CO2. Normally theres enough CO2 released to fill the space during the siphoning.

just fill the headspace with C02 and you will never have a problem
JJ

Well, I recon that filling the head space with C02 is probably a piece of cake for folks who keg all thier brew and have plenty of cornis sittin' around the house, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I'm not sure I'll get one any time soon, either, so was looking for alternatives. I may get one of the bottles I saw just for experimental purposes and see how it works out.

Thanks for your perspectives. I'll let y'all know how it works out.

How would you go about filling the headspace of a food grade bucket with CO2?

thow a chunk of dry ice into the beer.

All this worry about headspace is largely unnececcary. If your beer is fermenting normally, when you transfer it to secondary, it will release suspended Co2 (from the fermentation process) thereby putting a blanket of CO2 between the beer and any remaining air in the container.

If you're able to purge the headspace, great but if you don't then your beer is only gettting exposed to trace amounts of oxy and the likelihood of this causing any problems approaches nil for HB purposes.

Here's a little experiment for you. Let your brew ferment for a while until the airlock bubbles stop. Pick up the bucket/carboy or move it, ever so slightly. The instant you move or disturb the beer in any way, a bunch of CO2 is released causing the airlock to bubble.

Now imagine you are racking to the secondary, (a carboy in this case) as the beer travels through the siphon hose and deposits in the secondary, its releasing CO2. This is creating a blanket of CO2 over your beer. I'm pretty confident that by the time you have racked the whole batch of beer into the secondary, there's little to no O2 left in the carboy.

DWRHAHB.

Get a very large balloon and use it to capture CO2 from the primary. Then you have CO2 to squeeze into your secondary to evacuate Oxygen.

I really do not think it is necessary to try to evacuate the air from the secondary. Fermentation is still going to produce enough CO2 to buffer the beer.,

Here's what I decided to do...

I boiled a cup of water and mixed in a 1/4 cup of sugar. I figger that will kick off a little, tiny jolt of fermentation that should kick out any atmo and replace it with CO2. Just installed a regular bubbler and crossed my fingers.

My Dad and I used to do that in home winemaking years ago before 3 gallon carboys were common.

Depending on how much headspace you're trying to get rid of it might be cheaper to get a smaller carboy or bucket, rather than filling with marbles.

fvl306 said:

I've had the same question about too much head space in secondary. Somebody I know suggested filling part of the space with sanitized glass marbles.

Has anybody tried doing something like this?

Click to expand...

Good luck!

Robert

People who like to worry get worried about headspace. As long as you're not shaking the carboy during fermentation or aerating when you rack, you're not introducing enough O2 to be detrimental. RDWHAHB!

What about if you have a 6 gallon carboy as a secondary? Should I be concerned about that much extra headspace? I can rack to a corny instead of my carboy, i guess, but I kind of like the carboy (looks nice sitting there full of beer.)

marshman said:

Aaah, I was under the impression that it was desirable to hve as little air as possible in the secondary, so was looking at something as close as possible to total volume. Thanks

Click to expand...

Just to be safe, I use 5-gallon carboys for my secondary aging. This of course minimizes the chance of oxidation, but I would NOT worry either way. Enough CO2 is produced to keep the oxygen off of the beer.

The sanitized marbles idea sounds like way too much trouble for what you're trying to do. If you were truly worried about it, you could go get one of those cans of "Private Preserve" that you use to keep oxygen off of opened wine. In essence, it's an inert gas blend, mostly argon, that is heavier than air and nonreactive. You spray some gas into an open bottle of wine, and it sits on the surface of the wine, providing a protective layer between the wine and any oxygen in the bottle. Again, I wouldn't worry if I were you, but if it makes you sleep better at night, you could always do the same thing with beer in a carboy.