How to Create an Airlock for Making Wine or Beer

• Remove the label from and rinse out a prescription pill bottle. Then, drill an 1⁄8 inch (0.3 cm) hole in the cap.
• Thread the tube of a ballpoint pen through the drilled hole, and seal it with epoxy. Place a clean rifle cartridge over the end of the pen inside the bottle.
• Drill a hole in a cork slightly smaller than the pen tube, then thread the pen through the hole on the outside of the pill bottle. Fill the bottle with water, and place it in the carboy.

Clean out a clear plastic bottle. Prescription pill bottles with the label removed work well.

Drill an ⁄8 inch (0.3 cm) hole in the lid and a hole the size of an average ballpoint pen in the bottom of the bottle.

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 push it in all but ⁄2 inch (1.3 cm) from the top. Mix fast-curing two-part epoxy and seal the pen to the bottle.

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.

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.

Fill the pill bottle with water up to ⁄4 inch (0.6 cm) below the top of the pen inside.

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