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Racking question

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1BraddogsBBQ

NewBee
Registered Member
Jul 30, 2008
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Chapin, South Carolina
I've got 2 batches of mead going that are in 2 gal buckets. What is the max size glass carboys I could use to rack them in ? Do I need to go out and buy a couple 3 gallon ?? Hope not cause they don't give em away here.

Thanks a bunch!
 
It depends on how much mead you have. Do you have 4 gallons of mead total, or do you just have a gallon of mead in each 2 gallon bucket? Either way I would rack it into a carboy when fermentation slows down. I would say that you could go for either a couple 1 gallon carboys and just split 2 gallons into two carboys for each type of mead. If they make 3 gallon carboys then I would use that, but I am not aware of them if they do make them.
 
Well assuming you have ~2 gallons in each bucket you could buy four one gallon size jugs and split each of your two gallon batches into halves. I buy the 4 liter jugs of Carlo Rossi wine and just dump it and use those usually since they're so cheap at my store (#6 stopper is fine for these). If you're not too keen on the idea of splitting up the batches you'll just have to buy a couple of three gallon carboys and top off with some distilled water.

'Course you could also just mix all the stuff together in a 5gal carboy and top that off with a bit of distilled water as well, but if the batches were split to begin with I'm sure they developed slightly differently even if the same yeast and honey amounts were used since each carboy is its own little world. In the future may I suggest sticking with one, three or five gallon batches so you don't have this problem with odd sizing again? Good luck to you! :cheers:

PS- If you decide to go with the one gallon or 4 liter jugs, the wine thieves which house a hydrometer for easy gravity readings don't fit into the mouth of the jugs. I ordered a smaller glass wine thief for these. The larger auto siphon setups seem to work fine though ;)
 
Good point on the "odd" sized batches. Yes I have (2) 2 gallon batches different concoctions going. So.... no good to put 2 gal into a 5 gal carboy huh? The darn 3 gal glass carboys are pricey here and I can get the 5 gal for 19.99, plus I have 2 for beer and 1 6.5 gal sitting empty now :'(

Thanks for the help everyone.
 
Hi 1BraddogsBBQ,

You can put a small batch in a 5 gallon carboy without problems if you blanket it with CO2 or inert gas. After that, the headspace becomes essentially irrelevant. You do not need to have a fancy kegging set up to do this. Check out This Thread or try a search on "Topping Up" (without the quotation marks) and see if you get enough alternatives.

Good Meading!
Medsen
 
I'm with Medsen. If you have more than will fit in 1 g in each fermenter, go with a larger carboy and blanket it with CO2. You can buy a small bottle at a wine store for $10.

I've also heard about people sterilizing a bunch of marbles and using those to increase the volume.
 
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