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A six gallon kit in a ~5 gallon secondary fermenter

I have a problem here where I have a kit that makes 6 gallons of wine, which won't fit in my secondary fermenter. It will all fit in the primary, so my plan is to mix the entire volume as normal in the primary fermenter, but only move over 5 gallons into the secondary. There are a lot of disclaimers about making 5 gallons of wine from the mix. My impression of all of them is that is using the full kit with only 5 gallons of starting water. I think I'd be in the clear here if I do it this way. Am I asking for serious trouble?

Reply to
Adam Preble
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Why not make the kit as called for in the instructions. Then rack into your

5 gallon carboy plus a 1 gallon bottle.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas USA

Reply to
William Frazier

Hi Bill,

I think that's what he is proposing.

Adam,

No problems doing it that way. I usually store the extra in different sizes of plastic soda bottles (from .5 liter to 2 liter) and use it as top up wine. I like the soda bottles because you can squeeze them to eliminate head space as you use the wine for topping up.

Andy

Reply to
JEP62

Exactly what I would suggest. When I make a batch of wine from scratch I like to make 7 gal batches so that I can fill a 6 gal carboy and a 1 gal carboy. That way when I rack I have plenty to top up with. It works out very nicely. Oh, before you get to that point, fine a 1/2 gal. jug that you can use because on first racking you probably will not use the entire extra gallon. This is a great method of avoiding the topping up problem.

Ray

Reply to
Ray Calvert

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