I must be confused. I cannot think of any real reason to put alcohol in the air lock (or anything other than water). I don’t believe it does anything except evaporate faster than water, then when empty allow air into your mash to create vinegar.
It functions as plumbing trap to let co2 out.
If your worried about it being sucked back in, that’s impossible… It would require a negative pressure in the bucket. Even if it did, such a small amount of vodka or water would have no effect. Best to use water in my opinion so it doesn’t evaporate. Somebody please set me straight if I’m wrong.
It does require a negative pressure differential. The problem is, you can easily get one any time you remove the lid to a bucket, remove the airlock itself, cold crash, or even have a little bit of a temperature drop after active fermentation. I always have to be extra careful to not suck back a bunch of airlock liquid when I remove a bucket lid, and even then, it sometimes can’t be avoided. Not to mention in the summer I frequently find dead fruit flies floating in the airlock.
All good reasons to keep the airlock filled with diluted star-san or vodka, just in case some of that bacteria-laden water does find its way into the bucket or carboy.
+1
Cheap vodka, or whatever alcohol is around. Better safe than sorry. I’d rather waste a half ounce of cheap liquor than 5gal of beer.
Namaste brewing friends!!!
I’ve pretty much gone to just using a blowoff tube arrangement routinely now through fermentation until bottling day. No surprises and no airlock suck back/drying out , etc concerns. Plus the audible “blub” is soothing and reassuring!
I always lose some diluted star san from the suds. I could imagine full strength star san disappearing. I though that the bubbler air lock doesn’t suck the liquid back in like the 3 piece can. Either way I wouldn’t be too worried as long as you added something before fermentation really slowed. The escaping C02 should be enough during active fermentation at least temporarily.
