Too Much Headspace in Secondary?

[The_Nid_Hog]

I racked what I planned on being five gallons of RIS to secondary in a Better Bottle last week. However, I ended up giving my daughter a gallon to experiment with aging, so I'm left with only four gallons in the five gallon bottle. I brewed it from a recipe for Courage 1914 Imperial Stout from Ron Pattinson's website and I decided to follow his (and Kristen England's) directions and dry hop it from the beginning. So there's about 2 oz of Fuggles pellets in there, along with an ounce and a half of bourbon-soaked oak cubes.

My question is about the headspace. Right now, I have a thick carpet of foamy hops covering everything. Transferring it woke up some yeast activity, and a bit of renewed fermentation kicked up action in the fermentation lock so I should have a renewed bit of CO2 on the surface. Should I be good to go for a prolonged bulk conditioning period in secondary? I don't keg so I don't have a ready supply of CO2 on hand, but I do have an unopened can of Wine Enthusiast Private Preserve (carbon dioxide/argon/nitrogen). Should I think about filling up the headspace with that? Go with an addition of sanitized marbles? Moving it to a smaller container isn't possible right now. Thoughts?

 

[ColoHox]

Headspace is certainly an issue, especially while aging in secondary. Filling the headspace with that gas would definitely help. In a pinch, I put a coffee filter in a funnel, and placed dry ice into the filter. The sublimated CO2 flowed down the funnel and made a nice layer on top of my beer. Sure kind of wonky, and the nanny's will caution the use of dry ice, but it works.

 

[ThreeSheetsBrewing]

Sanatize some glass marbles( or other inert materials) and displace the open space.

 

[JayInJersey]

marked for future reference...cause that sounds tasty

 

[sweetcell]

yes, you definitely want to do something about all that headspace.

marbles would be good, however you are going to need a lot of marbles to make up a gallon. dunno how practical that will be.

that wine preserver will work. if you can, attach a tube/hose to the output of the preserver can, and stick that tube down into the carboy so that the gas is deposited down low close to the beer. once you fill the headspace with gas, seal it up as best you can. jam that bung in a deep as you can (does that sound dirty to anyone else?), maybe wrap the carboy/bung interface with saran wrap to seal it even more. gases will seek to equalize, so unless you get a perfect seal (i.e. impossible) there will be a sloooooow transfer of O2. you might need to repeat the gassing at some point. how long were you planning on secondary'ing?

 

[The_Nid_Hog]

So I sprayed a blanket of gas into the carboy. The can comes with a little straw attachment (like WD40), and I used it to spray down onto the surface. Quickly pounded the bung in and took the advice to wrap the neck of the bottle in saran wrap. Right now I'm planning on a couple of months in secondary--my original plan was to keep it there until St.Patrick's Day and then continue to bottle condition until next fall.