Question about space at the top of a carboy

Hey all,

This is my first crack at making mead and so far so good (I hope).

One quick question I would like to throw out there.

The recipe I followed was for a slightly smaller carboy (18litres/5 gallons) but my carboy is 23litres/6 gallons and as you can see from the picture there is a lot of space at the top.

Should I do something to fix this or is this anything to really be worried about?

Thanks in advance for your help, hopefully I will be posting a lot more as I get into this delicious hobby.

 

I do hope you didn't add those tags to this thread, as they're quite inappropriate.

THat said, if you're in primary ferment - it's not so big a deal. You should ensure that once fermentation is over that you really have minimal headspace. Some fix this by using marbles and the like to take up space, but it really leads to a loss of mead in the end. It'd recommend getting a smaller carboy for long term aging, or adding some honey/water to get yourself up to a decent enough volume.

You could normally just "top up" in secondary, but considering the amount of headspace you have there - that's just going to water down your mead.

 

Any recommendation for adding honey and water to top it up?

In other words would you add 2 parts honey to one part water till theres little space at the top?

 

"Any recommendation for adding honey and water to top it up?"

It depends on what your S.G. was when you started. Most of the time when I top off the fermentation takes off again for a while. For consistency reasons I make my honey/water mixture to the original S.G. I started with. In the end I still get around S.G. 1.000 and heck you can always back sweeten.

 

Sorry for the stupid question but what does S.G. mean?

I just did this batch yesterday so I would assume I would be good to add more water+honey today ...

 

My recipe was basically this

4 cans of lemonade concentrate
3kg of honey (6lbs for my american friends)
4tbs of yeast nutrient
2 cups of sugar
1 packet of yeast

The amount of everything I think worked out to 18litres (5 gallons) but my carboy is 23litres (6 gallons).

So now I have to figure out how much more nutrient, honey and water to add, **** ...

Suggestions?

 

Probably the easiest way to adjust your recipe would be to divided it by 5 to get the 1 gallon equivalent then add the ingredients to a gallon of water and top off. If you used a whole package of yeast you're probably O.K. but it would never hurt to add a little of the same strain. Like YooperBrew said it does matter as much right now as during secondary.

 

Whats the worst case scenerio that I just leave it with that much space at the top?

P.S. does anyone know some recipes that call for a 23 litre (6 gallon) carboy?

 

Again, probably a stupid question but what does oxidized mead mean to me?

 

Gotcha ...

I have to figure out how much honey and water to add to this to top it up then ...

 

On the other side of things, if I add too much water what would happen to the mead?

I know i I add too much honey it just makes it sweeter.

 

Your SG will drop and you will lose potential alcohol or sweetness.

 

I agree. If that's a 6g carboy, no WAY there's 5g in there.

 

Do you have to rack or cant I just ferment and age in the same carboy and just take care when I bottle it, to not disturb the sediment.

 

Part of the issue is the mead sitting on the sediment. It can impart off flavors if it(the sediment, or trub) is sat on too long. I think the mead will clear faster as well if it is racked.

GL,

Tim