Equipment

[rhsanborn]

I'm about to buy some more equipment for mead/wine making, and was hoping to get some advice. I plan on doing 5 gallon batches of plain mead, cyser, cider, dandelion wine, and maybe a wine get in some order relatively soon. I want to order several better bottles to do bulk aging in, but I'm unsure on size. I hear limited head space is a goal. Will 5 gal bottles/carboys suffice? I plan on doing primary in pales.

 

[biochemedic]

I use 5 gal glass carboys for mead or anything that would have similarly long fermentation/aging/conditioning times. I'm terms of minimizing headspace, one of the mead guys at my LHBS taught me to do 6 gal primaries...when you rack the first time to 5 gal container, you can also fill about 4 wine bottles full. Set these to their own airlocks, and they can them be used to top off after subsequent rackings.