The water in my airlock keeps disappearing (im guessing its being sucked into the primary?). What should I do? Cheers!
What's the temp of the room where you are fermenting? Pressure changes due to temp swings can draw in liquid from the airlock. Are you using a bucket/better bottle or glass carboy? Switch to vodka in your airlocks so that you have no worries about infecting your beer. Standing water is not the most sanitary choice in an airlock.
You can also add the minimum amount of water/vodka/sanitizer solution into the airlock so that if a vacuum is drawn on the airlock, the liquid does not get drawn into the container. Unless you are doing a longer fermentation on something that is already relatively stable, there's no need to worry about it drying out too much in a short time. Fill it so that the the bottom holes on the inside piece of the (I presume) 3 piece airlock are just barely covered. That should do the trick, regardless of what happens.
Airlocks I don't trust them, I love the sound so I have the CD. The way I do it is something like this:
No no no! A brick isn't sanitary. Condensation will build up underneath the brick and drip back into your primary. Sanitized tin foil in between, if you must. OP: Google "blow off tube" or just keep the beer at a steady temperature. You NEED to be doing this anyway during fermentation and it's not bad practice to keep the beer at a pretty steady temperature throughout its life thereafter.
LOL WTF. A brick? If OP's house/room has big temperature swings then yes, you will get a lot of suckback if you are using a three piece airlock. Try moving the fermentor to a more stable part of the house. You may also want to look into replacing your three piece airlocks with an S airlock. Very hard to get suckback on those (but not impossible if overfilled).
A sanitized quarter would have probably done the trick. Overkill! I'll reiterate to the OP, that the best thing you can do for future beers, is focus on fermentation control. If you need help, start looking for a swamp cooler setup, or ask for help here on the thread. Lots of ideas here. If you continue to suck fluid into your beer, use something like Star San or vodka instead of (tap water?). It'll prevent an infection and a $20+ mistake and a waste of 5+ hours of work. I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm just trying to keep this short and to the point.
I use cheep vodka. I do not have temp swings where I ferment and the vodka will disapate with active fermentation. I have been contenplating adding a brick to my brewing arsonal!
I'm a Better Bottle guy who starts with a blow-off tube and then moves to a three-piece airlock. But from today forward, it's the brick method only!
Placing a sweatshirt over the bucket will provide some insulation for the batch. This'll result in less temperature swings and less airlock suction problems.
Typically I use a blowoff tube or three piece airlock when fermenting. If I plan on conditioning for a long period of time, I switch to an S type airlock. Seems to be much more difficult for sanitizing solution to be sucked into the carboy due to pressure changes.
I use a better bottle with blow off tube stuck in a gallon bottle half filled with starsan. I leave it this way till I keg it. I do not stick tube in starsan till beer is same temp as fermentation chamber which is around 63f
