Marbles and headspace for mead

[Dave_E]

Hi Everyone,

New mead guy here… I lost this year’s vintage from the vineyard, so thought I'd give mead a try. Headspace is very important in winemaking whilst racking. I have watched a gozillian videos about mead making and never seem to hear anything about headspace during aging, and I see carboys that are down to the crown of the jug.

What are you mead makers opinions on the subject? Anyone use the marble trick?

Dave

 

[CKuhns]

Mead is very similar to wine as it relates to oxidation. Headspace is a thing with mead too. Yes, have used marbles and or racked to smaller containers for bulk ageing.

 

[Rish]

You could make more must and use it top up your carboy.

 

[MightyMosin]

While I havent tried them, I posted some collapsing containers that might be good for short time use.

 

[GTMonster]

I've used marbles, however found them to be a pain when racking. You can't get the Syphon tube low enough without disturbing sediment if you add a few layers. The sediment also sits on the marbles.

You can buy smaller demijohns... I now fill to close to the top of larger ones... Then the last demijohn is selected to fit the remaining liquid.

 

[MightyMosin]

While I havent tried them, I posted some collapsing containers that might be good for short time use.

I recently purchased a 2 gallon collapsible water container. I have about .75 gallon of a mead and just too much headspace.

I put it in there, opened the spigot and collapsed it to remove the are and closed the spigot up. This won't be long term, but it will keep it with almost air until I have the time to get back that that specific project.

 

[D the Catastrophist]

I make small batches so use 1 gallon wide mouth fermentation jars for secondary for my wines, meads and ciders. If I have excess, I have a selection of wide mouth mason jars for the extra. I have fermentation lids like this that I use for those. Nice part is if you pop out the rubber nipple in the center, you can insert an airlock.
https://a.co/d/9xj3tF5

 

[beren]

I recently purchased a 2 gallon collapsible water container. I have about .75 gallon of a mead and just too much headspace.

I put it in there, opened the spigot and collapsed it to remove the are and closed the spigot up. This won't be long term, but it will keep it with almost air until I have the time to get back that that specific project.

What plastic it is made from has a giant impact on how much O2 can get through it. https://www.researchgate.net/figure...f-common-polymers-in-packaging_tbl1_318010903 Regular Polyethylene is almost 50x more permeable than PET. You might have been better off with glass + headspace, esp. if you can purge the headspace with co2 or something.