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

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
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.Cubitainer2.JPG
 
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
 
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 :)

0223190931.jpg
 
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 ?
 
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.
 
Back
Top