Many do the primary in a big bucket, in which case there is no place to
attatch the airlock.

If you ferment in a 23 L carboy there may not be enough headroom in your
fermenter, because it may bubble and foam too much, etc. A food grade
anti-foaming agent can help, but it's also better to use some kind of larger
primary fermenter.

I use a larger glass 6.8 gallon fermenter as a primary, and that leaves
quite a bit of headroom, and I attatch the airlock. The yeasties seem to
have no trouble at all without any oxygen, and in fact, yeast produces
enormous amounts of CO2 gas, which they generate in part to help kill off
enemy bacteria, so it seems obvious to me that yeast don't require any
oxygen at all.

LG


"Brandon" > wrote:

>Newbe question - I'm making wine for the first time using a wine kit and
>after reading some of the posts here, I'm not sure I should be using an
>air-lock during the primary fermentation as oxygen is required to assist the
>yeast in converting the sugar into alcohol and SO2?
>
>According to the kit instructions, I should rack the wine into the secondary
>when to Specific Gravity reaches 1.010 or less, which should occur from 5 to
>7 days after the yeast is added.
>
>Here are my current readings:
>
>Day # Specific Gravity Temp of Must
>1 1.080 76 F (Yeast Added)
>2 1.070 72 F
>3 Didn't Check 74 F
>4 1.050 72 F
>
>At the current rate, I'm guessing the wine should be ready to rack around
>day 8? Should I remove the airlock or keep it attached?
>