Secondary

[ez2cy]

Some use a carboy for primary, which I've never done.

I'm running out of carboys. Is it possible to use a fermation pail for secondary?

Thanks in advance

 

[BernardSmith]

Personally, I wouldn't because a) when you transfer the wine from the primary you are basically saying that there is no more sugar left for the yeast to ferment and that means that the wine will not be producing any additional CO2 b) racking removes the blanket of CO2 that was sitting atop your wine in the carboy and c) pails, unlike carboys, have very large diameter openings and if the wine is not producing CO2 and you have removed much of the blanket of CO2 at racking then you are exposing a very large area of the surface of your wine to air. Aside from the potential problem of oxidation I think that you will be risking alcohol AND oxygen loving vinegar producing actobacteria. If you have some way to blanket the wine with a noble gas to prevent either problem then I don't see the reason not to , but if the space between the surface of the wine and the top of the lid will be filled more or less with air and if that area is large then I think that you are taking a very large risk

 

[cmason1957]

You might be able to, as long as there is something filling that big space with CO2, in other words, while it is still fermenting, but that doesn't last all that long, after you rack it. You don't want that much surface area of wine exposed to oxygen. If it were me, I would ignore the racking into "secondary", clamp the lid down tight, attach an airlock and let it finish in the bucket. Then rack into a carboy fairly soon (10-14 days) after putting the lid and airlock on.