Question about head space in Secondary

[DGag453]

Hi everybody - This is my 9th brew and I've never come across this problem before. I just transferred an Imperial IPA from primary fermentor to a secondary (plastic 5 gallon carboy) to dry hop. Anyway, I lost way too much liquid to hop material and now the secondary has a lot of head space in it. Basically, it looks like I got between 4-4.25 gallons of beer, leaving about a lot of space for oxygen.

My question now is: what should I do? Leave it be and hope there is enough sugar left to convert to CO2 and expel the air, or fill it to the top with tap water?

If going with tap water, should I bother to boil it first?

The beer went from 1.091 OG to around 1.010. So there is quite a bit of alcohol to kill nasties, but probably little sugar left to convert.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[luke2080]

I'd leave it alone. If you did add water, boil and cool it first.

If anything, boil 1/4 cup of sugar with a little water to mix in, like you would be priming, to give the yeast something to chew on and build up a bit of CO2. (Assuming you don't have a CO2 tank to just blast some CO2 on top.

 

[Thehopguy]

id have to say keep it simple and dont F' with it

 

[spenghali]

I just encountered the same problem with the same type of beer. I just relaxed and it was fine. Also, the large amount of dry hops I'm sure helped to keep infection at bay.

 

[PintoBean]

It will be fine, don't add water, you'll dilute your beer.