6 gallon secondary fermentor?

I have a 5 gallon batch in the primary. I was hoping to use a 6 gallon Bubbler that I was recently given as a secondary fermentor, but I have a concern. On my initial brew, I used a 5 gallon secondary, and was told that when I siphoned the primary to the secondary, to fill the 5 gallon bottle to the neck with water, in order to minimize the surface area of the beer in the fermentor. The 6 gallon Bubbler presents a problem for this. Will only filling it to the 5 gallon mark and leaving a large amount of the surface exposed in the bottle present a problem?
Thanks.

 

Unless you are racking on top of another ingredient or aging there is no reason to transfer to a secondary. If you do need to you can minimize head space with sanitized glass marbles, although a gallons worth might be quite a bit. If it was my beer I guess I would fill the head space up with CO2 at a minimum to reduce the chance of oxidation.

 

Agreed. Skip the secondary and just leave it in the primary then bottle/keg if this is a regular beer. There's tons of info on here about the argument of to secondary or not to secondary and when to do so if need be.

 

+1 on skipping the secondary unless there's a special reasons use one like adding fruit or long term aging.

A 6 gallon secondary for a 5 gallon batch is a bad idea unless you enjoy the taste of wet cardboard.