Room for hops?

[gravityspiral]

Hello all,

I've been brewing for 6 months or so now. I use 6 gallon carboys, and occasionally I'll move to a 5 gallon to let a brew age (currently aging a mead for next year)

My question is this: I want to get a widemouth carboy to make dry hopping easier (I haven't actually dry hopped anything yet) but I'm curious if a 5 gallon carboy will actually have enough room in it for 5 gallons of brew plus a few ounces of whole leaf hops in a hop bag, or if I should just get a 6 gallon instead and flush it out with CO2 before racking and not worry about headspace.

Thanks in advance!

 

[daksin]

Hello all,

I've been brewing for 6 months or so now. I use 6 gallon carboys, and occasionally I'll move to a 5 gallon to let a brew age (currently aging a mead for next year)

My question is this: I want to get a widemouth carboy to make dry hopping easier (I haven't actually dry hopped anything yet) but I'm curious if a 5 gallon carboy will actually have enough room in it for 5 gallons of brew plus a few ounces of whole leaf hops in a hop bag, or if I should just get a 6 gallon instead and flush it out with CO2 before racking and not worry about headspace.

Thanks in advance!

I don't have much experience with either whole hops or wide mouth carboys, but I'm fairly certain you will have enough room. This is a pretty common usage of the smaller carboys and unless you're hopping a pliny clone with all leaf hops, you should be fine.

 

[MgMt_Home_Brew]

The hops wil absorb a good amount of beer ao you should have room. That being said I would just get a 6 gallon carboy and purge it with CO2 before racking into it. Then you can use it as a primary too if needed.