Hydraulic lock for wine with own hands. How to make a water trap?

In the business of making any alcoholic beverage at home, there are subtleties. Those who regard winemaking as a kind of art, receive as a result of their efforts a noble product. One of the most important moments during the maturation of wine is the avoidance of air entering the vessel with the wort. It is for this purpose and serves as a hydraulic seal for bottles.

What is this device?

The device that prevents contact of liquid in the bottle with air, uses water. There are several types of this device for use in different cases:

• For the chemical industry;
• For plumbing;
• For winemaking.

How it works? Due to the layer of liquid, the gases released during the interaction can move exclusively in the given direction without the possibility of penetrating back and preventing the normal flow of fermentation or other reaction.

Is it possible to do without it?

If in sanitary ware (sinks and toilet bowls) no hydraulic locks were used, all unpleasant odors would penetrate the room. Siphons are arranged in such a way that the drainage water freely flows into the sewage system, and the foul-smelling air does not return back.

At specialized industrial plants, apparatuses equipped with exhaust valves exclude mixing of air and hydrogen, preventing ignition.

Only using a water trap for bragging, you can get wine, and not vinegar, at home making fun-filled drinks. Without access to oxygen, bacteria that convert alcohol into acids are not viable.

How does air affect the reception of the right beverage?

Fermentation is a process during which yeast, "eating sucrose," secrete alcohol and carbon dioxide. It is inadmissible at this time to get air inside the vessel. The container with the wort should be closed in such a way that the released gas does not return back. Access to oxygen is covered by a lid with a hydraulic seal on the neck of the bottle. It would seem that the simplest thing is to tightly close the neck with a cork. However, the pressure created in the tank by the released gases will inevitably lead to an explosion of the vessel.

If the goal of the whole process is to obtain wine vinegar, you need to let the soup turn sour. Leaving the vessel open in the first few days from the beginning of fermentation, you can get acid. When there is enough sugars, and alcohol is still low, it is impossible to obtain quality drinking alcohol. It turns out a completely different useful product - an excellent wine vinegar.

Braga, poured into a container with a hydraulic seal, long enough to stand without distillation and oxidation. The alcohol produced in it remains for a long time without changes.

The simplest water trap for wine

They make the following with their own hands:

• The wort is placed in a prepared glass or plastic bottle;
• In a suitable lid, make a hole of a certain diameter;
• A flexible plastic or rubber thin hose is tightly inserted into the slot;
• The vessel is sealed by a prepared structure;
• A jar of water is placed on one level with the main vessel.

For the escape of gases it is important that one of the ends of the tube does not touch the brew, poured into the bottle. The second tip should be lowered into a jar of water and fastened. The task, which the lid with the hydraulic seal performs, will be performed if only the end of the hose, passed through the water in the jar, is achieved. Visual inspection of the quality of the completed design will be bubbles popping out of the hose in a jar with water. If the wort well wanders, and the bubbles do not appear, you need to check the tightness of the lid. The point of entry of the tube into the hole must also be qualitatively insulated.

Another method that makes it possible to make a water seal for wine with your own hands is different in that a metal tube is tightly inserted into the hole made in the lid. On the outside, a meter hose is inserted, which can be lowered into a jar or a bottle of water.

How to determine the readiness of the product?

Using the classic kit of the lid, tube and can, described above, allows you to fairly accurately find out the willingness of the brew or wine. The termination of the release of bubbles suggests that the brag can be distilled, and the wine - drained from the sediment.

After this, a young playful drink should stand for a couple of weeks, so that the dregs finally settled. Only after this, you can pour "life-giving moisture" on bottles and put in storage in a dark cool room.

Recipe for wine from jam and raisins

In one liter of water, stir 1 liter of fermented, sour jam and about 100 grams of unwashed raisins. This mixture is poured into a bowl, taking 2/3 of the volume. Close the neck with a simple cotton stopper and put the "shell" in a warm place for a week. When the thicket floats to the surface, the mixture must be filtered through several layers of gauze. Wine semi-finished product should be poured into a bottle, closed with a hydraulic seal and put again in a warm and dark place. After one and a half to two months of fermentation, the finished beverage is poured (through a tube) into another container and again put on sediment for a short time. Then they are bottled, tightly clogged and stored in a cool room.

Are there ready-made devices?

Some "masters" of winemaking claim that you can do without any adaptations at all. They recommend the following:

• A cotton sponge (disk) or a fragment from the respirator is placed under the plug with a hole;
• The outer tip of the tube placed in the opening of the lid is simply filled with a piece of cotton wool.

These variants have one important drawback: at the very beginning of fermentation in a bottle with a wort there is still a very small pressure of carbon dioxide, which excludes the penetration of air into the vessel. The result is one - sour vinegar instead of a delicious drink.

It is not always necessary to make a water trap for wine with your own hands. There are several simple shopping options made of plastic and glass. Their disadvantage is that they have certain sizes and can not always approach the container used in each particular case. In addition, it is almost impossible to clean the structure from the inside of the coating that has appeared during use.

The devices seal the bottles with a wort quite tightly and can last several years with careful handling.

Several tried and tested ways to make a water seal

Wine from ancient times was considered a symbol of fertility, celebration and fun, a symbol of life's joys. The craftsmen, enjoying the very process of making this drink, invented several designs completely replacing the standard hydraulic locks. Among them are the following:

1. The famous "greetings to Gorbachev." The variant is suitable for use on fermentation vessels with a wide neck (jars, jugs, bottles). A thin rubber glove is put on a vessel with a wort. When it inflates and acquires the shape of a large hand, one of the fingers needs to pierce a hole with a needle to automatically evacuate carbon dioxide. The gas will come out, not allowing oxygen inside. As soon as the glove falls off, it stops puffing - braga is ready.

The disadvantage of this method is the complexity or impossibility of tight fixation on vessels larger than 20 liters. To prevent the glove from dislodging by the gases released during fermentation, it is tightly wrapped around the neck with an elastic band or a string. This model is difficult to call a hydraulic seal, despite the fact that it completely replaces the standard design.

2. The water seals for wine by their own hands are often made from two disposable syringes of different volumes. Fittings are removed and discarded. A small syringe is inserted into the large syringe and fastened with an elastic band. This design is installed in the hole on the lid of the vessel and sealed. Water is poured into a large cylinder, and gas will exit through a small one.

3. Some craftsmen know how to make a water seal for large plastic bottles. The needle of the disposable dropper is inserted into the tightly twisted lid of the bottle. The second end of the tube is placed in a jar of water, as in the first method. Clamping on the hose can adjust the output of carbon dioxide from the fermentation tank.

Some non-standard options

When enumerating the following ways, one involuntarily comes to mind the saying that "the goal is fiction". On what only do not go especially ingenious master-winemakers!

• Use a conventional valve with a ball under the vodka bottle;
• Adapt nipeli from bicycle cameras complete with soft thin hoses-capillaries;
• Put on a bottle with a withered inflatable baby ball and pierce a hole in it;
• Insert cocktail tubes and straws from juices into the opening of the lid.

To make the joints sealed, you can drip them with wax, paraffin, use pieces of plasticine or silicone glue.

Whatever hydroshort is used in the distillation of home beverages, it is necessary to remember the importance of a tightly fitting lid, the pressure of gases in a vessel with a wandering wort, about the aging time of the finished wine.