If it is fermenting then its best to have plenty of room, once its done fermenting then yes you need to fill the missing volume and sanitised marbles will work.
Head room in the primary is fine - rack to secondary when SG is 1.010 and let ferment to dry. Rack off the lees then - if you will have a lot of head room - purchase a smaller carboy - that way you don't have to water them down or displace with marbles.
thanks for all the advice, most appreciated, have a couple of demijohns,and a fermenting bin was just looking for best way to use this bigger container, thought golf balls would have been a cheaper and easier option,but maybe the plastic coating might affect the wine, will try marbles, of to ebay now to buy job lots! hope that boys kitchen was'nt in to much of a mess , must be potent stuff!, cheers again
I just had two five gallon buckets full of muscadine wine that I started today and filled too full explode in my kitchen. Well, not really explode but they blew out the air lock and spewed all over everything, including the ceiling. There was enough pressure to make the bucket "bow" on the bottom so it wouldn't sit flat on the floor. God I could have put an eye out!
This is an interesting topic for me.
I've only been brewing kits for a year, but never topped up my carboy's in secondary or ageing stages. I'm now worried I may have spoilt some of my brews. Although the instructions on many kits tell you to top up, it just seems silly to me to water down your wine and I'm not at the point where I want to blend the kits with other wine to top up that way.
I like the marble idea. They seem quite cheap too.
Sorry to hijack the thread. Good topic though
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