SC - brewing/mazing/etc

[Mike C. Baker]

- ---kappler <kappler at edgenet.net> wrote:
> > Even safer / better is to fill the airlock with "spiritous 
> > liquor" (I use the same cheap vodka that goes into my tinctures).
<SNIP>
> Iv'e been brewing for quite sometime now, and this is the 
> first time I ever heard of using spirits in the airlock 
> insted of water.  As the fluid in the airlock simply works 
> as a check valve (allows flow in only one direction)
> to allow the CO2 generated in fermentation out and preventing 
> wild yeasts and stuff in the atmosphere from getting in, how 
> does it make a difference what the fluid is?  

Others have already hit on why *I* think it is superior: no wild
yeastie-beasties or other dreck grows in the vodka. (The stuff I'm
using in the lock is only about 70 proof, i.e. 35% ethanol.) The
note about checking the content of the lock chamber regularly is
also well to remember, with water OR spirits. (If the water is
starting to look cloudy or has scum on the surface, seriously
consider swapping out with a spare lock and re-sterilizing.)

Another advantage over water is that in the remote possibiity the
fluid in the lock gets sucked back into the fermentation chamber,
spirits will still tend to remain on the surface of the stuff that
is happily burbling and reduce the chance of losing the whole batch.

> I am not discounting your suggestion, I just don't
> understand how its "safer/better."  If you could please 
> elaborate, I am always looking for "safer/better" ways 
> to brew, but I just doesn't unnerstand.

Occupational hazard for being a Puck? <gryn>

Hope the above expansion / extension assists in your understanding.
 
> as ever,
> curiouser and curiouser was Puck

I'd say you've gone right on past "curious" and entered territory
best described as "strange" by now, good Puck...

===
Adieu -- Amra / Pax ... Kihe / TTFN -- Mike
(al-Sayyid) Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra  /
Kihe Blackeagle (the Dreamsinger Bard) / 
Mike C. Baker: My opinions are my own -- no one else would want them!
Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8661
Alt. e-mail: KiheBard at aol.com, MikeCBaker at aol.com

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