Head space in Secondary fermenter? Bad? How Bad?

[branlovesbeer]

I just racked to a secondary fermenter.
I used a 6.5 Gallon glass carboy for Primary.
I am using 5 Gallon Glass carboy for Secondary

Here is my problem:
When I racked to the secondary, there was about 1 inch (above the yeast cake) at the bottom of the primary carboy that I could not siphon out. I estimate that at probably 1/2 gallon or so.

The secondary (5 gal) carboy could have held another 1 gallon. So even if I had gotten it all in, there still would have been some head room.
The current head room in the secondary is 4 inches.

Question:
What kind of damage will this do?

I am trying to follow the 1-2-3 rule.
- Primary was 1 week.
- I was planning to leave the beer in the secondary for around 2 weeks.
- Then transfer to bottles for 3 weeks.

Thanks

[hooky]

There's nothing you can do about it now, except maybe gently purge with CO2. If you don't have CO2, don't worry about it. It will still taste great. It's your first beer after all!

[Vienna Lager]

1-2-3 is good, provided you can wait that long. When racking to seconday or into bottling bucket get yourself some sort of a wedge. One of those rubber door stoppers is fine. Use that under a corner of your primary/secondary to prop up your container to get as much wort out as possible. Also stick your racking cane into the lowest point of your container when it is propped up.

[Beerbilly]

I had this problem with a pale ale a few brews back. In my infinite wisdom I boiled a gallon or so of water, let it cool then added it to the beer. Although the beer came out ok I never could shake the watered down taste. Everyone else loved it though. I will never add water again thats for sure!

[HogieWan]

no worries - the beer in the primary will have some co2 in solution. When you rack, you knock some of that out and the co2 will push the air in the carboy out. You should have mostly co2 in the headspace

RDWAHAHB

[branlovesbeer]

Thanks for all the words of wisdom. I really needed that. I was kind of worried about it.

I didn't even think about the siphon stopping before I did it.

During my test runs with water that did not happen. Oh well, just goes to show, "Be prepared for anything."

The wedge idea is great thank you. I wil definitely do that next time.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by HogieWan
RDWAHAHB

And if that does not do it, a couple shots of bourbon will do the trick for sure....

[markaberrant]

I secondary 3 gal batches in 6 gal glass carboys. I've got 2 of them lagering at the moment, and will be for about 5 weeks. Then I'm doing a 3 gal Winter Warmer that will be in a 6 gal secondary for 6 weeks.

It's no big deal. Headspace in secondary is not an issue with beer, unlike wine which needs the headspace to be purged after you degass and kill all the yeast.

[branlovesbeer]

Originally posted by HogieWan
no worries - the beer in the primary will have some co2 in solution. When you rack, you knock some of that out and the co2 will push the air in the carboy out. You should have mostly co2 in the headspace

Maybe 2 hours after I stored the carboy in its final resting place, the airlock (floating piece) began floating. It does that when the gas is being pushed out.

Thanks for he reassurance.