I have a 12 gallon stainless steel vessel with 10 gal. of pinot noir in it. I racked it once and it has been sitting for 6 months or so. I keep the 2gal of headspace full of CO2. Everything seems to be going very well - I tasted it recently and I think it's ready to bottle. (months overdue, actually) The only minor problem is there seems to be some CO2 still dissolved in the wine, which makes sense. …
I'm starting my first attempt at wine-making, so please pardon the noob question.... I have two 6 gallon buckets with airlocks. But the "Winexpert" kit I've got recommends 8 gal for primary, and 6 for secondary. Actually, the box says "no less than" 8, while the enclosed instructions say "up to 8", and say to top off the bentonite+juice to 6 gal with water at the start. So I am a little confused over managing the volumes. 1: Why the …
I got an annoyance issue here. I have a Cornelius keg 19lt and 15-16 liter batch of Wit-beer almost ready to go, but poorly timed.Issue is I currently don't have the CO2 regulator or Tank. Reason for this is currently I shouldn't really be dropping money to get it within the near future (2 months) and due to other commitments I can't really be spending time bottling either over the same period. I'd like to just dump the whole lot …
I think most of us here leave a head space that is the space left when we pull the wand out of the bottle. So, if we are dealing with still mead is the head space really necessary? Would this space + micro-oxygenation through the cork oxidate much faster long time aged meads? Or is this something we should not concern about?
Cornelius kegs come in various sizes, but many home brewers use the "five gallon" (nominal) size. Including the headspace, how much volume is available inside of the standard five gallon Cornelius keg?
I bottled my beer two days ago, primed with honey as per the instructions of my all-grain kit. I've since been reading and found you need to leave about an inch of headspace in the bottles. Unfortunately I did not know this at the time and have filled the bottles to the brim. Is it ok to open the bottles and let some beer out to get this headspace or will that ruin the beer?
Inspired by Ron's post here, I'm wondering how necessary it is to top off a carboy of wine that is aging. I have 5 containers of mead/wine right now and they all have headspace. Not a ton but they definitely are not full to the neck. I imagine the answer has to do with whether or not/how often you open the container to take samples. I don't think I've ever had any major issues related to headspace in my beer/cider …
Krausen: to blow-off or not to blow-off? With a large krausen (foamy head) in a fermentation vessel (FV), often the best remedy is to use a blow-off tube into a bottle of sanitizer. Question: Would it be better to have a sufficient amount of head-space, so that nothing is lost from the FV, allowing all the yeast, wort, flavour, and hops to remain inside the FV? Has anyone noticed any loss of flavour with excessive blow-off, such as the loss …