new (to me) carboy

[jimlin]

My brother-in-law gifted me with a 6-gallon glass carboy while I was visiting him in PA over the long weekend.

Up until now I've only been using a 7.5 gal bucket. Assuming that 6 gal isn't ideal for primary (lots of overflow of krausen, no?) but I could try using it as a secondary. This has me considering trying to use gelatin in it to help clear my always cloudy homebrew. In the posts I have read, it sounds like the combination of the gelatin and cold crashing the fermenter is the best option. Unfortunately, I don't have an extra fridge that can handle a carboy. Once winter hits, my basement gets into the mid 50s, but right now, it's about 10 degrees warmer than that. Will gelatin in a secondary at fermentation temp work, or is it a waste w/o cold crashing?

[spiderwrangler]

It'll still work on the yeast, but cold temps help things settle more rapidly, as well as potentially allowing you to create and drop chill haze.

[PSUHomebrewer]

You could use it for primary also. I do most of my ferments in either a 6 gal vintage shop pet carboy or a better bottle and don't have to many issues. The only time that I fear blow off is in bigger beers, my American barleywine had alot, and then it's easy to use a cap and blow off tube.

The only slight issue using finings in them is remember you don't fill the carboy with as much beer as the bucket. With this you could loose a bit more beer, but depending on how much you fill the carboy could gain a little. it all depends on how good you are with a siphon and how the bottom is shaped.

An idea I've been thing of is using isinglass and tipping the carboy ( with a carboy stand would be optimal but an old book should work just as well) and giving me a clean spot to siphon from.