Well, I just invested in four 32-gallon Brute barrels that will serve as my primaries. Today i am testing my new diaphram pump from Morewine, and marking my barrels for volume.
And generally playing in my wine cellar. :-)
My plan was to use them to hold 25 gallons of juice each. But in filling them with 25 gallons of water, I noticed that i only have about 6 inches of headspace. The barrel is about 20 inches in diameter. I would esitmate that the proportion of wine in the barrel is about 85% full. This gives me only 4.3 cuft of headspace.
Depending on fermentation rates, 80% full 5-gallon buckets can get full when full-on fermentation.
Having never fermented this large of a batch, i don't know what to expect.
Is this too little headspace? Should i back it down to 20 gallons?