Fermenter Head Space

[BugAC]

I'm splitting a batch of my saison (5.5 gallons) into 2 3-gallon fermenters. I plan on racking half onto some French Oak chips and the other half onto Blood oranges.

My question is, I will have about a gallon of headspace in the fermenter with the blood oranges. Will the sugars in the blood oranges create enough of a secondary fermentation to push out any air that may be in the fermenter, or should i add some honey or turbinado to the that secondary to help jump start a secondary fermentation?

 

[Imperator85]

One thing to keep in mind is that there is always residual CO2 in the beer unless you went out of the way to degas it...which you wouldn't for beer. Some of that will come out of solution when you add the oranges. You'll probably be okay in the time it would take for the oranges to provide their intended effect.

 

[BugAC]

You'll probably be okay in the time it would take for the oranges to provide their intended effect.

I plan on secondarying for 1-2 weeks.

 

[dand]

You could use one of the carboy caps with two hose connections on your secondary and have a blowoff tube that runs from your primary to the secondary, which would purge out any oxygen during your primary fermentation. Then have an airlock on the second hole of the secondary to make sure there is no blackflow of air.

 

[Menhir]

If you have a CO2 tank you could pipe a little CO2 into the secondary (not into the beer). CO2 is heavier than air so it will displace the air in the carboy.