carboy sizing ?

[Bunky]

I'm new to wine making and made a batch a while back and it didn't seem to turn out right

Now I'm going to try a batch of hard cider.

My question is that can I have too big of carboy or fermenter ?

I plan on making a gallon so if I use a two gallon carboy or fermenter is this too big ?

 

[Tenbears]

The primary fermenter can be bigger than the batch of wine , within reason IE: you can make a gallon of wine in a 2 gallon bucket, the violent fermentation keeps oxygen off the wine. Once you rack into your carboy you want as little surface aria exposed to oxygen as possible. this is why we top up the carboy. for one gallon of wine use a one gallon jug filled to the bottom of the neck.

 

[olusteebus]

And don't be discouraged about the bad batch. IT HAPPENS!

 

[francois_du_nord]

Bunky,

What TenBears is saying is that during primary fermentation, we all use containers with extra volume to allow for the bubbling of active fermentation. Many use plastic buckets for this phase of winemaking. Most folks will switch to 'secondary' fermentation in glass when the process begins to slow down.

The real key is that when your fermentation stops, you want to minimize the amount of contact with oxygen, because when wine gets exposed to oxygen long term, it begins to get stale. That's why a bottle of wine that has been open for a couple of weeks has lost it's charm.

When you get ready to store your cider for aging prior to bottling, fill that one gallon jar right up to the neck, and then you can let it clear for a longer period of time without worrying about it getting stale.