Air in carboy, can I use co2 to purge, or should I put in smaller carboys??

[~Botanist~]

Hey all, the title on this thread is pretty much self explanitory, but I will go in to a little more detail.

I am making my first wine. It is from a vinters reserve riesling kit. After racking into secondary, and appropriate waiting period verified by gravity readings, I racked off the sediment and added the next couple packets from the kit. Bentonite, P metabisulfate, and then isinglass, if I remember correctly.

When visiting my local homebrew store today they told me its very important to have the wine as close to the bung as possible so little or no oxidation occurs. Right now I have probably about 6" of airspace in a 6g carboy, but I only racked 2 days so I picked up additonal 3 and 1g carboys in order to rerack to container that can be maintained full.

OK, thats the situation so far, my quesion is, since co2 is heavier than air, and I have a tank sitting around partially full, would it be possible for me to sanitize a piece of tubing to attach to the co2 regulator and put a very light light flow of gas going into to carboy, thus displacing the air in the carboy with heavier co2 and eliminating the need for me to rerack into smaller containers?

Thanks and be safe

B

 

[BigKahuna]

Yes.

Dang...it's not very often i can answer a question in one word...then I have to have 10 letters.

 

[~Botanist~]

Thanks Bigkahuna, I appreciate the concise response, lol.

If anyone thinks I shouldn't I would love to hear any reasons against it if you have some.
B

 

[Rick_R]

The instructions I've seen elsewhere on line suggest adding a similar wine to top it off. It's what I've done every time I've made wine. (Including this one, that'd be once.)

Rick

 

[~Botanist~]

thanks for the advice rick, I have also read that, but don't want to mix something I made with some thing I bought, for flavor reasons, but thanks for the advice.

Be safe

B

 

[rod]

i usually swirl my wine or beer after racking to secondary to release some c02 and displace the o2.

 

[Yooper]

You can do it, but it's not recommended, especially for kit wines. The reasoning is this- you degas (and it's a real pain) to get the co2 out of the wine. The biggest problem with kit wines is not degassing enough. So, say you degas it. Then you add co2, which is then absorbed into the wine. So, you'd have to degas again, which would oxygenate your wine.

Follow the kit instructions- some tell you to leave a few inches until degassing. Some tell you to top up. I top up to the bung with wine or water (depending on what I'm making). In kit wines that make 6 gallons, you are supposed to top up with water to make up the 6 gallons. You're not watering it down, that's what you're supposed to do.

Have you already degassed? If you have, you have to top up.

 

[~Botanist~]

Thanks yooperbrew, yes, I degassed a couple days ago.

I just checked the instructions, and somehow I missed the step that says top up w/cool water within 5cm of the bung.

Thanks yooper, I apprecaite it.

I'm just going to use fresh RO water to top up with. Should it be boiled and cooled or is right from the RO spigot OK?

Thanks

B

 

[Yooper]

If it's bottled water, you can just go ahead and use it, no need to boil.

 

[~Botanist~]

Its not bottled water, its reverse osmosis filtered water, 0ppm. I used non-boiled to top up some beer but I know thats a different ball game. When I made the wine originally I topped up the concentrate with non-boiled RO water, so I figure it can't hurt since it has been done already.

B