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Community Q&A

Co-authors: 16
An airlock lets carbon dioxide (CO2) escape from fermenting wine and beer without
86 votes - 95% Updated:
letting outside air in. Click a star to vote Views: 139,606

"I lost a part of my airlock and wanted

to improvise, this article helped me
with that."
- Marc X., 3 weeks ago

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Steps

1 Clean out a clear plastic bottle. Prescription pill bottles with the label
removed work well.
2 Drill an 18 inch (0.3 cm) hole in the lid and a hole the size of an
average ballpoint pen in the bottom of the bottle.

Related Articles

How to
How to Make an
Work in Airlock for
Commercial Fermenting
Production Wine

How to How to

3 Take the guts out of a ballpoint pen so that you have an open
tube remaining. Insert the pen in the bottom hole of the pill bottle and
Make
Dandelion Wine
Become a Wine
Connoisseur

push it in all but 12 inch (1.3 cm) from the top. Mix fast-curing two-part epoxy
and seal the pen to the bottle.
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4 Clean out a rifle cartridge (30/30, 7.62, or anything with a
diameter greater than that of the pen). Place it over the end of the
pen inside of the pill bottle.

5 Drill a hole in a cork slightly smaller than the diameter of the pen.
Place the end of the pen all the way through the cork.
6 Fill the pill bottle with water up to 14 inch (0.6 cm) below the top
of the pen inside.

7 Insert the cork end into the bottle in which you are fermenting
your wine, beer, or moonshine mash.

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Tips

The airlock works on the exact same principle that your bathroom sink does for the
trap below the basin. It creates a pocket of air that can escape through the top,
but doesn't allow air from above to enter. You can substitute any of these parts
with similar items. Clear plastic bottles are easy to work with and it's important to
see the bubbles in the water to know that your solution is fermenting properly. The
CO2 goes up the pen and is then redirected below the water by flowing down the
rifle cartridge and out the top of the pill bottle through the hole you drilled in the
lid. A commercial airlock will do exactly the same thing and will cost you 10 to 20
dollars. With 10 minutes of work, you can make this for pennies.

Warnings

Be sure to let the epoxy cure for an hour before filling with water.

Check the water level in the airlock every few days to make sure it's high enough,
as it evaporates slowly during this process. The bigger the pill bottle you use, the
less you'll be adding water.

Related wikiHows Edit

 How to
How to Make an Airlock for Fermenting
Work in Commercial Production Wine

How to How to
Make Dandelion Wine Become a Wine Connoisseur

How to
Open a Wine Bottle Without a How to
Corkscrew Make Homemade Wine

How to How to
Drink Wine Store Wine

How to How to
Remove a Broken Cork Open a Bottle of Wine

Article Info

Categories: Wine

In other languages:

Espaol: hacer una esclusa para produccin de vinos y cerveza, :

, Italiano: Costruire una
Valvola Airlock per la Produzione di Vino e Birra, Portugus: Fazer um "Airlock" para
Produo de Vinho e Cerveja

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