Is there such a thing as too much head space?

[brewhymn]

Howdy ya'll! I'm back after several years of not brewing! I have two or three 1 gallon carboys that I would like to separate from a 5 gallon brew. Lets say I use 2 of them as secondaries. Can I just use my 5 gallon carboy to rack the other 3 gallons, or should I just bottle it after primary? I wanted to use the 1 gallon carboys to play with additional ingredients. I just don't know if that is too much head space in the 5 gallon.
THanks!

 

[ChessRockwell]

I'd say if it's going to be there any length of time, yeah that's too much headspace in the 5g. I've done what you're talking about and use the 1 or 2 gallons to experiment - but just bottle the remaining when you rack off the others, it's good to have a baseline "non-experimental" beer anyway to compare the others to. Either that or get a 3 gallon carboy.

 

[neomantra]

Having lots of head space during primary isn't such a big deal since the co2 is filling up that space easily during the initial fermentation. But as Chess mentions I don't think you want a bunch of head space after that point because there won't be much co2 being generated and all that empty space will be mostly full of oxygen.

 

[billl]

If you have a CO2 tank, you can fill the carboy with CO2 before racking and eliminate most of the oxygen worries. Otherwise, its not a great storage location for any length of time. If you just leave it for a couple days while you get around to bottling, I'm sure it would be fine though.

 

[brewhymn]

Ok cool guys. Then i'll just bottle the majority after primary and rack my experimental portions to the 1 gallon carboys.