What is best to top off a carboy if I have too much headspace

[Rice_Guy]

It would be nice if small/ inexpensive variable capacity stainless tanks existed. Over the last two year I have been playing with plastic "cubitainers" with a solid #6.5 cork or a silicone burper bung. So far they look good. Most back sweetening/ holding for botteling is being done in these.

 

[heatherd]

I top up with a similar wine, not water.

 

[Kiazer]

Racking down is the best. If you can't, buy some cheap wine similar to what you are making. I usually find that it doesn't take as much as you think.

When aging like others have said use another ..... its not like youll lose that bottle. Or serilize some marbles to fill the head space

 

[Chuck Rairdan]

Just 2nd racked this pomegranate blueberry dry rose from 2 x 1-gallon jugs to a 3 gal carboy and bunged it with a Headspace Elliminator. Created the vacuum with a vacuum stopper as pictured. Fitted the stopper onto the HE with a 2" section of 1/2" poly tubing. About 15 strokes on the hand pump and, voila!, headspace gas reduced in neg pressure environment. Added 2 campden tabs (and some glicerin) so that emitted sulfide gas will prevent oxidation and help still the wine. 1st racking included a medium dose of French oak. Initial tastings have been good and this a potent one at just over 15% abv. Gots some serious legs

 

[vacuumpumpman]

Just 2nd racked this pomegranate blueberry dry rose from 2 x 1-gallon jugs to a 3 gal carboy and bunged it with a Headspace Elliminator. Created the vacuum with a vacuum stopper as pictured. Fitted the stopper onto the HE with a 2" section of 1/2" poly tubing. About 15 strokes on the hand pump and, voila!, headspace gas reduced in neg pressure environment. Added 2 campden tabs (and some glicerin) so that emitted sulfide gas will prevent oxidation and help still the wine. 1st racking included a medium dose of French oak. Initial tastings have been good and this a potent one at just over 15% abv. Gots some serious legs

View attachment 53525

Make sure that you use the white caps to go over the check valve - just don't push them all the way down as you will never get it back off.

It appears that you got some CO2 out using the hand pump ?

 

[Chuck Rairdan]

Thanks for the reminder, hadn't put on the cap. Still holding the vacuum just fine and the hand pump worked great, just make sure to keep a good seal between the pump and stopper while pumping. It was a trailing fermentation when I racked it so some residual CO2, but mostly just reducing the mixed gas in the headspace. A little O2 might do it some good before bottling and with the sulfide gas in there too no worries. Really like the HE, nice option to have in the toolkit.

 

[Chuck Rairdan]

Could probably adapt a blood pressure tester hand pump/valve assembly attached to a large, durable ballon or bladder to eliminate carboy headspaces

 

[vacuumpumpman]

Could probably adapt a blood pressure tester hand pump/valve assembly attached to a large, durable ballon or bladder to eliminate carboy headspaces

WOW - I came up with that same idea back in 2012 -
https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/carboy-air-space-bladder-trial-version.18124/