Another racking question

[Dylan]

I just racked my secondary fermentation off the sediment, out of the carboy, and back into the prime ferm bucket. My question is should I rack back into the carboy immediately and top off or can I leave it in the bucket for a while? All I have is a 6 gallon carboy and bucket, nothing smaller.

 

[CBell]

Depends a little bit on the type of wine you are making, but no, you need to wash your carboy and immediately rack back into it. Now, is there a difference between 1 and 4 hours? no. But I wouldn't personally leave it for more than a day or two. And yes, top off or use marbles to fill the empty space seems to be the consensus if you don't have the option of racking down into a 5 gallon.

 

[Dylan]

Yeah that's kind of what I was thinking. Thanks