High OG and extra headspace

[evilhomer]

I'm working on my first wine. I didn't measure the OG when I mixed everything. I just followed the recipe which gave me a whopping 1.114. I transferred to a 5 gallon carboy yesterday and it measured at 1.004. Beersmith is telling me that's 14.7%, so not terribly high but higher than what people say makes a better wine.

I'm guessing there's about 4 gallons in the carboy right. The airlock is still bubbling so I'm not too worried about headspace at the moment, should be a nice CO2 layer on top.

Should I top off with water to bring the alcohol content down? I'm wondering if that would give the wine a watered down flavor.

Or do I leave it and just get a smaller carboy for the next rack?

 

[DoctorCAD]

There shouldn't be very much lees on the second racking. Use a like wine.

 

[Yooper]

There shouldn't be very much lees on the second racking. Use a like wine.

Agreed. Either put it in smaller carboys (a 1 gallon and a 3 gallon, for a 4 gallon batch) or use a like wine and top it up.

That's way too much headspace once fermentation slows.