Make Your Own Waterless Silicone Airlocks for Homebrewing

In homebrewing, you need to keep biological contaminants such as bacteria and mold spores from the air from entering your carefully sanitized fermenters. However, you can’t just close off the bottles as you need to let CO2 from the fermenting process escape.

The usual solution is to install a water-filled bubbler/airlock on the top of the fermentation vessel. The airlock lets CO2 out in the form of bubbles but keeps air from getting in.

Another solution that has been put forth is the waterless airlock. These are specially made silicone stoppers with a pair of flapper valves inside a cylinder. The flappers go in only one direction, so gas can go out but not in. I didn't want to spend $3 for a valve and $8 for shipping, so I decided to go over to http://techshop.ws and make some of my own.

Step 1 Materials

• Silicone or rubber stoppers, food grade since they are intended for contact with your beer. You will want the ones with a hole in the center (or drill it yourself).
• Food-grade silicone caulk
• Clean typing paper

Comments

[Homepwner]

I just thought of something that might be better and easier! I don't intend to offend the maker of this instructable. The sports drink "Powerade" has a sippy lid with a silicone insert that has a ( + ) cut into it. It wont leak when the bottle is full of liquid and turned upside down. If you would make an adapter to fit it to your carboy, It would be a perfect bubbler/airlock and would look nice. It would probably even make little squeaky noises so you know it's working! (this might be a bad thing LoL :). Cheers!

[buirv]

Sorry but, It looks like you had a few already when you took these pictures. Come On Focus...That black thing looks like one of those stink bugs we see out in the desert.