Reddit reviews Twin Bubble Airlock for Wine Making and Beer Making (Pack of 3)

I don't know of any good comprehensive tutorials, but I can write a bit of one up for you. Do some googling. This website is a good source of information and I refer to it quite often.

The problem with a tutorial for how to make wine is that there are so many variations and methods from extremely simple to extremely complex.

The first wine I made was from store bought grapejuice just make sure you're getting it without preservatives as the preservatives can screw it up. You can do this for about ~$5. If you have a home brew store nearby I would recommend going there, but you can also order online.

1. Buy an airlock like this.
   
   
2. Buy a bung that is big enough for the mouth of your bottle of grape juice like this.
   
   
3. Buy some champagne or cuvee yeast from a brew store. I recommend the champagne/cuvee yeast because it is very hardy and alcohol tolerant. Lots of the red or white wine specific yeasts are very particular about their environment and much harder to ensure full fermentation. Don't use bakers yeast. It will ferment, but it can produce some off flavors and it tops out around ~5-7% alcohol or so.
   
   
4. Buy 1 gallon of no preservative fruit juice.
   
   
5. Pour some out, add between 1 lb and 1 1/2 lbs of sugar to the bottle. The alcohol content will depend on how sweet the juice is to begin with, but if there were no sugar in the juice this would put you between 6-10% alcohol. With the sugar already in there it should put it at around ~13%. The champagne yeast is good up to about 16% alcohol so you should be safe there (too much alcohol will kill the yeast and stop the fermentation). You will want to leave a little bit of air space between the top of the bottle and the juice level because it will foam a bit during fermentation and if you fill it too much will start spewing out through the airlock, then you have a mess.
   
   
6. Add the yeast in, put the (thoroughly washed) airlock in, and let it sit somewhere at ~70 degrees. Don't let it get above 76 or so, and don't let it get below 65. Yeast goes slower if its too cold and produces off flavors if its too warm.
   
   
7. Leave it alone for about a week and a half. The day after you add the yeast you should see bubbles rising through the airlock. This is the C02 from fermentation being released. Do not take the airlock off. Air spoils wine and since you are not using any sulfites, you really don't want to open the top.
   
   After the week and a half, you will have a drinkable young wine with lots of yeast sediment in the bottom. It will taste alright though (maybe a bit fizzy and slightly sweet). Just pour carefully to avoid getting sediment in. Don't bother letting this one age, it will turn bitter if you don't get it off the sediments so go ahead and drink it. This is more about just understanding the process and proving to yourself you can do it.
   
   You need a bit more equipment and to spend some time reading to go much past that point. As an example, the wine above will be cloudy. Typically you would "rack" the wine off the sediment into another container and continue letting it sit. You might do this several times over the course of a year. The flavor profile will change drastically over that time, the wine will mellow out and taste less "alcoholy" and it will slowly clarify as the yeast settles out. You need to research pectic enzymes for fresh fruit fermentations, and also probably read about acid, tannin, and campden tablets to get really good results or to let it age for extended periods of time. You can also get much better results out of whole fruit (i use frozen) than juice, but its a bit more involved.
   
   The one piece of advice I would give you is that when you start buying equipment, skip the 1 gallon jugs and fermenting buckets. Go straight to the 5 gallon. 1 gallon is 5 bottles of wine, but its the same amount of work to make 1 gallon as it is 5 gallons. Much better to make 25 bottles at a time. I have gotten lazy lately, but for awhile I kept 3 batches going at any given time and was able to have more than enough to only drink wine I made and never buy alcohol.
   
   Edit: Alternately, you can buy wine making kits that will produce really good wine. The problem is you need the equipment and they are expensive. I avoid them because I calculated out that the kits using good wine grapes average ~$4 dollars a bottle, where as ones I make from fresh fruit generally average ~$0.50 per bottle. Most people are a bit surprised, but a blueberry, blackberry, or strawberry wine can be every bit as good and complex as grape wine.

I'd recommend an airlock that will allow air out but not in. Fermenting in a sealed lid could cause the fermented contents to build up pressure from the CO2 and then explode.

Don't, it's a bad idea for this. This is a good set up for making a gallon of hard cider, mead or beer. But OP is going to spend a good hour or 2 trying to get those peppers out. Also there is no way to weigh it down because of the cone shaped interior, and you can not fit anything in the tiny hole that work anyway. So, mold it a high probability.

But, for other fermentation purposes (i.e. mead), this set-up is fine and you can get one gallon carboy just by buying some decent apple cider and resuing the jug. The other parts are simply a rubber stopper and an airlock..

It is fairly easy to get large equipment like vessels and burners locally in India but it's the little stuff that makes your brew day/bottling day easier like the bottle fillers and auto siphons which are kind of difficult/expensive to get hold off. Depending on which city you are in hops, malts and yeast can be easy to source especially if you have any brewpubs around. The selection of hops is again very limited so like like /u/chino_brews suggested you could get bulk hops from YCH. Dry brewing yeast is available (Fermentis, Lallemand) but it is mostly sold in 500g bricks so I would recommend picking up some 11g packets as well. You should definitely pick up a large 16/32 oz bottle of StarSan and a tub of PBW or something similar for cleaning and sanitizing. I would also pick up a hand held bottle capper, a racking cane, a couple of airlocks and a spigot for bottling. Almost everything else can be improvised or jugaad if you're a little handy :)

hey i just watched this video, you might want to try a few new things regarding the dill pickles:

1. use a 5% brine
   
   
2. rather than sealing the jar with a lid, use an airlock by putting it through a plastic lid via a rubber grommet.. (or just get a clay crock, but they can be pricey.. or MAKE a clay crock.. episode idea?)
   
   
3. if all else fails, use a commercial yeast rather than depending on wild yeast

I do it 5 gallon batches so 5 gallon cheap store apple juice, 2 lbs of corn sugar, 2-3 lbs of peeled shredded ginger, and [champagne yeast] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00434CB74/ref=od_aui_detailpages01?ie=UTF8&psc=1). Put it all in a Fermenter bucket with an airlock. Wait two weeks and bottle it/put it in a keg.

I would strongly caution against a 35 quart pot. The Bayou Classic 44 quart (11 gallon) pot is only a little more, and it's of dimensions more ameniable to brewing (tall, rather than squat). If you plan to migrate to BiaB, the version with the basket is quite useful; you'll be able to fire your heat source without worrying about scorching the bag.

For ingredients, I would recommend looking around for a LHBS (local homebrew shop). You'll likely not save much money ordering those online, due to their weight/cost ratio, and a LHBS is often the centre of your local community of homebrewers.

With regard to literature, my bible is John Palmer's How To Brew. You can also read the first edition online, but much has been learnt since that was published and the latest edition has current best practices.

That equipment kit is decent, but there are a lot of things in it you'll probably wish you hadn't bought.

You will want:

• 6 gallon primary fermenter carboy
  
• 5 gallon secondary carboy, for dry hopping (can't find any that ship with prime)
  
• A bench capper (wing/emily cappers are cheaper, but it's not worth it)
  
• An autosiphon
  
• A bottling bucket, with spigot
  
• A bottling wand
  
• Sanitizer (Starsan looks more expensive, but a bottle will last a long, long time. Especially if you pick up a spray bottle at the dollar store.)
  
• Two carboy caps and airlocks

I got it at a local ferment shop but you can get them at amazon

This is what I use, And get this plus the air locks

Noob here but what is this contraption with the red cap?

Edit: Nm Found it!

You could get him a home brew kit if you want to springboard him into his hobby?
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Homebrew-Home-Made-Beer/dp/B000QGI5RS/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1

Or else get him one/both books and a small piece of kit like an airlock. This would be good to have as a spare even if he already has a kit
http://www.amazon.com/Twin-Bubble-Airlock-Wine-Making/dp/B008ACWSZU/ref=sr_1_4?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1418754163&sr=1-4&keywords=airlock

Plus how about getting him some nice craft beers to taste someone elses handywork? Does your local beer shop sell any unusual varieities or local breweries?

Lastly, every cyclist I know is always loosing their multitool