My New Years Day Brew was a Belgian Quad using Wyeast Trappist Blend. Og was 1096 and it finished at 1014. I transferred to the secondary last week (glass carboy) and I came up a little low on my batch size. Since I plan on letting this age at least 6 months, should I top off the carboy with a little water to fill the headspace? It looks like a quart or so of water would do the trick.
I would not top off. I am sure it will be fine with a little head space, and doubt oxidation will be much of a problem for you. I recently bottled 3 gallons of quad that was sitting in a 6.5 gallon bucket, and it was fine.
I normally do not worry about it, but in this case the brew needs a long time for the Brett to work it’s magic. The Trappist Blend Yeast contains some Brett along with 2 other yeast strains. How long did your quad sit in the bucket?
I may be wrong on this because i have limited experience with funky beers. I think brett and a lot of other bacteria associated with funky beers are inhibited by higher alcohol contents. i think a lot of times high alcohol funky beers are blended to get the desired taste. Like i said my understanding of this could be wrong. but it may be something to look into before you let the beer sit for a year and then are dissapointed.
As far as I know everything is inhibited by high alcohol. Brett will survive better than most bacteria though, but since there aren’t any bacteria in that blend (just saccharomyces and brettanomyces) you should be more or less fine. Also I think Brett does better with some oxygen (flavorwise) so perhaps that little bit of extra head space will actually improve things.
