Watching & Topping Homemade Wine

Video Transcript

"Alright, now that we've filled up the jugs, we're going to put this breather on here. What this breather does is we have a little water in there, we have a cap here and it has a little thread on there and the gases are constantly being released from the wine in the form of Co2, and this breather allows those gases to get out without bugs or contaminants getting in so the gases come up thru here, they bubble out and then this little cap on here has little holes in there and that keeps out all the contaminants so that the wine doesn't get contaminated. Then as it's working, part of these wines start evaporating and, if you can see here, this level here is a little low so what you need to do is watch this as the wine is making and make sure that the distance between your top of your wine and where the breather ends, there isn't a whole lot of space. Because if that wine starts going down here and gets too much air space in here, then your wine is not going to make good, and it's not going to turn out to be what you expect it to be which is a very good, fruity wine. So at this stage you have to keep your eye on this wine. You just can't forget about it. Also in this breather the level of water in here starts evaporating, too. And they have a line right here to show you where the water level should be and, as you can see, my water level is here, and the water level should be up here. So I have to come back periodically, maybe once or twice while the wine is making, and add just a little bit more water in here so this breather doesn't start failing on me. So it's always important to keep an eye on your wine as it is working and making."