Afternoon All,
New member here. Been doing my homebrew meads for the past 2 years. I've had good success in the past using glass carboys and plastic buckets and recently invested in a 8Gal stainless conical fermenter to do larger batches.
I decided to go with an updated recipe of mine that had worked well in the past using blueberries and elderberries. Long story short, I failed to consider the space that the berries would take in the conical fermenter. This had not been an issue using the plastic buckets as they had more headspace for me to work with. Essentially, I ended up not having enough room for the water, too high of an OG, and having to remove some must to make space.
I ended up removing about 1.5Gal of must and splitting it between two glass 1Gal jugs and topping off with water, which was needed to get my OG to the correct starting point. Even there, I had too much and had to drain another gallon into another jug to avoid overflow during fermentation.
I am now at the 4 week primary fermentation point and will be removing the berries from the fermenter.
Question : With the room now freed up, should I transfer the 3x 1Gal contents back into the conical fermenter?
Thanks for your opinions and comments!
New member here. Been doing my homebrew meads for the past 2 years. I've had good success in the past using glass carboys and plastic buckets and recently invested in a 8Gal stainless conical fermenter to do larger batches.
I decided to go with an updated recipe of mine that had worked well in the past using blueberries and elderberries. Long story short, I failed to consider the space that the berries would take in the conical fermenter. This had not been an issue using the plastic buckets as they had more headspace for me to work with. Essentially, I ended up not having enough room for the water, too high of an OG, and having to remove some must to make space.
I ended up removing about 1.5Gal of must and splitting it between two glass 1Gal jugs and topping off with water, which was needed to get my OG to the correct starting point. Even there, I had too much and had to drain another gallon into another jug to avoid overflow during fermentation.
I am now at the 4 week primary fermentation point and will be removing the berries from the fermenter.
Question : With the room now freed up, should I transfer the 3x 1Gal contents back into the conical fermenter?
Thanks for your opinions and comments!