DIY Airlock for the apple cider

I sure hope the first batch of apple cider turns out well.  It's used a lot of balloons!  I've only been able to re use each balloon twice.  The balloons filled up so quickly.  Here's one at three hours after "burping" (removing the carbon dioxide).

DH suggested checking some of the shops that sell brewing supplies and just buying an air lock.  They are supposed to be quite cheap. 

They probably are if you can find the shops close by.  The two that we knew about are now closed.  I guess there just are not enough home brewers to keep them in business. 

At the price of gas we were not about to go any further away from home.  So DH checked a few YouTube videos and came up with his own version.   A piece of plastic tubing, the cap for the juice bottle, and a water bottle.  That's it.

He drilled a hole into the juice bottle cap.  Inserted one end of the plastic tubing into that hole so it comes out the bottom by about a 1/2".  The other end of the plastic tubing goes into the cap of the water bottle.  The tubing reaches to about 2" from the bottom of the water bottle.  The bottle is then filled 3/4 with water.  Several small holes drilled into the cap allows the gas to escape. 

The gas leaves the juice bottle through the tube, into the water bottle.  It then forms a bubble in the water that rises to the top.  The gas then escapes.  The water keeps air from entering the juice bottle through the tube.  That shouldn't be a problem until the fermentation process stops producing the carbon dioxide.  But if we're not around when that happens, the air could get in and spoil the cider.  At least that's how the process was explained to me.  If we've gone through all this for no reason......

Apple Busy

DS's new home has a yard full of fruit trees.  I managed to convince some of our neighbours that they really, really needed the cherries.  Many 5 gallon pails later they would run when they saw me coming.  But we did get some cherry syrup as well as some jam.

But what to do with the apple tree?  The crab apple tree didn't produce that much.  But the huge apple tree doesn't know when to stop.  From the looks of it there are three different apples grafted to the tree.  The ones turning red are a bit smaller.  One is larger and seems to stay green.  The third type of apples are large and green.  All are tasty if tart.

This is the fifth sink full I've washed and processed.

Not exactly small are they?

So after many batches of apple sauce as well as pawning some off on an unsuspecting relative  (Thanks Mom!), it was time to make something else.

I'm going to try brewing an alcoholic beverage for the first time.  We have the fruit, the juicer, the bottles, the sugar, the yeast and the balloons.

Washing, cutting and juicing two sink fulls of apples produced 4 litres of apple juice.  A distilled water bottle was sterilized and put to use.

For the first half hour there was no sign that the yeast was working.  Mom suggested resting the bottle in a sink of warm water to get it started.  That worked.

 Everything I read and watched on the net said keeping the bottle out of light and warm should help the fermentation process.  Thus the towel.

I get the feeling I best "burp" the balloon before I go to bed tonight or I may have a rude awakening.  Six more days and I'll get to pour over to smaller bottles (discarding the sediment).  And then we'll have a taste test.  That's if the whole thing doesn't explode before then!