Posts
This isn't really brew or yeast related at all.
It's just a good recipe for something interesting to do with pork belly which uses a combination of Viet, Chinese and Malay styles to deliver a new and tasty dish.
Most people in Australia don't bother with pork belly because it's a very fat cut and therefore must be bad for you. Maybe it's not so good for you if you eat it every day, but with some judicious cooking you can reduce the fat a little and end up with a good and flavoursome dish for cheap.
This is a twice cooked dish. There is a boiling stage and a slow cooking stage. Generously feeds four.
Here's how:
* Pork belly - about 25 x 15 cm and about 5 or 6 cm thick, no bone.
* 2 tablespoons of Lapsang Souchong tea (smells like burnt wood, Twinings is a good cheap choice)
* 1 tablespoon of Kok Fa Cha (Chrysanthemum flower tea from an Asian supermarket or T2)
* 1 tablespoon of generic Ceylon tea
* 1 cm of cinnamon stick, smashed finely
In a large saucepan, put about 1.5 - 2 litres of water and all the tea and cinnamon. Bring it to the boil.
Cut the pork in half and immerse it into the boiling water.
Bring back to a slow boil and leave it for 20 minutes.
In the meanwhile:
* Soak ten to twelve dried shiitake mushrooms and four or five pieces of dried black fungus in water
* Heat a claypot or similar heavy ceramic dish safe for use on the stove top with a little oil
* Peel and smash four cloves of garlic and add to the oil - heating gently only as we're trying to get aroma and flavour, not garlic chips
* Chop four shallots into 40 mm sections, reserving the top 75 - 90 mm of each for garnish, adding the bottoms to the claypot now
* Add eight to ten dried red dates (Asian grocer's again)
* Add two star anise
* Smash a thumb sized piece of ginger - just pummel it to break open the fibres to let the flavour out
* Add a couple of generous dashes of dark soy sauce and one dash of kecap manis
* Give it a little stir now and then to make sure everything is being heated gently and the aroma and flavour is being extracted
* Rescue the pork from the boiling tea concoction and cut into 20 mm strips and then 20 mm sections, adding to the pot
* Give it a good stir and bring the heat up
* Make sure the meat is coloured all over by the dark soy
* By now the dried mushrooms should be rehydrated, so cut off and discard the stalks and cut each mushroom into three or four strips and toss into the pot
* After adding the mushrooms, add just enough of the mushroom water to almost cover the contents of the pot
* Add 50 - 100 ml more of the tea and fat from the pork boil
* Lid on!
* Bring it all to the boil and then reduce to a very low flame and keep it simmering for about 45 minutes to 90 minutes - whatever suits you - and stir occasionally to keep it all nicely combined.
* Garnish with finely chopped shallot and a chopped chilli or two and let sit for ten minutes after you turn off the flame, just to infuse the flavour a little more. Stir through. Serve.
Serve with steamed rice and a good strong stout, porter or other dark ale. Yummo!
If you don't have those teas at home, then you can try a normal 'red' tea like Pu Erh or whatever you have in your cupboard. Tea adds a little extra flavour to the meat and the tannic acid helps tenderise it and break down the fat somewhat. I wouldn't recommend green tea.
Also, if you have cooking caramel sauce, usually from Asian grocers, then add one or two tablespoons to the pot at the beginning to bring up the warm and toasty flavour. Don't be tempted to use the stuff they put on ice-cream - it's not the same and it might not work too well as it's too high in unconverted sugar.
Dried red dates are pretty healthy and are reputed good for the girls, if you know what I mean. To increase the health-giving properties of the dish, you could easily add a handful of dried wolf berries (or whatever fashionable name they're being called this week). Just get them from your Asian grocer and don't get ripped off by health food store or supermarket prices as they're mostly from the same place (China) and region and growers. Organic foodies: go knock yourselves out on the costly ones.
Cheers!!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Bread kills.
I'm preparing a pretty comprehensive comparo of S-04 vs S-05 brewing yeasts from Fermentis at the moment. It's taking a little time as the beers are presently maturing in the bottle so that we have a full grain-to-brain set of notes about these two yeasts. Good info for beginners moving up from kits and the rather ordinary yeasts they come with and refresher info for experienced brewers who might like to step back to something simpler for making some fast and easy brews for summer.
In the meanwhile, here's some humour I found some time ago:
Bread Kills!
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. Every piece of bread you eat brings you nearer to death.
5. Bread is associated with all the major diseases of the body. For example, nearly all sick people have eaten bread. The effects are obviously cumulative:
Cheers!!
In the meanwhile, here's some humour I found some time ago:
Bread Kills!
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. Every piece of bread you eat brings you nearer to death.
5. Bread is associated with all the major diseases of the body. For example, nearly all sick people have eaten bread. The effects are obviously cumulative:
- 99.9% of all people who die from cancer have eaten bread.
- 100% of all soldiers have eaten bread.
- 96.9% of all Communist sympathizers have eaten bread.
- 99.7% of the people involved in air and auto accidents ate bread within 6 months preceding the accident.
- 93.1% of juvenile delinquents came from homes where bread is served frequently.
Cheers!!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Hydrometer - Your Bestest Brewing Buddy.
The hydrometer is a pretty humble looking device, but it's seriously one of the most important items you can have as a brewer. It's so simple to use, yet it's one of the most important safety items you could ever possibly own.
Basically, a hydrometer is a weighted glass or plastic quasi-cylindrical device which has a calibrated scale on the upper end. There are many kinds of hydrometers for specific purposes, but we'll just stick to talking about the ones used in brewing.
It can tell you when fermentation is in progress or if it's complete and with a little simple mathematics you can even work out the alcohol percentage of your beer. Pretty awesome for a tool with no moving parts, isn't it?
Here's what it looks like:
The one in the pic is a slightly fancy one with some additional scales on the other side of it for approximate grammes of sugar per litre and alcohol percentage, as well as approximate OG and FG for beer and wine. We'll just focus on the scale which is most important to us as brewers: the specific gravity scale, as shown in the photograph.
There are three terms you need to know:
* SG - Specific Gravity: A measure of the density of the liquid comparative to water.
* OG - Opening Gravity or Original Gravity: The specific gravity of the wort prior to pitching the yeast.
* FG - Final Gravity: The specific gravity of the competed fermentation.
Each different brand of hydrometer may have slightly differing instructions as to how to read it. In the case of this one, the reading is taken at the upper end of the meniscus. It's calibrated to 20C which is usual for Australia. Other parts of the world use different calibration temperatures. Read the documents that came with yours so that you know.
Using it is very, very easy:
* Take a sample of the brew to be measured in a suitable container
* Insert hydrometer gently
* Twirl it a little to remove any gas bubbles which might be adhering to the bulb and let go
* Take reading and use the information wisely.
Take a look at this pic:
The pic is showing a reading of about 1011. This is the FG for a rather tasty English Ale - an ordinary bitter - which is in my fermenter at the moment, having completed fermentation and now being ready to bottle later today.
When you draw the sample, do it gently so that you don't put a head on it. If you put a head on it, you will need to wait for that to go away so you can get a good reading. Also purge the tap a little at first as there will usually be yeast and trub (waste by-product of the brewing process) in the tap, which would cause a false reading.
In the case of this brew, the OG was 1049 and the FG is 1011. From this, we can work out how much alcohol by volume as a percentage (ABV%) is present.
Here's the formula according to Coopers (www.coopers.com.au): (OG - FG)/7.46 = ABV%.
In this case, it would be:
(1049 - 1011) = 38
38 / 7.46 = 5.09%
Because you will be bottling it, you need to add 0.5% to account for the secondary fermentation from the priming sugar in the bottle.
Therefore, this beer will end up at 5.59% approximately after bottle conditioning.
There are different methods of calculating ABV%. 7.46 is sometimes replaced with a lower or higher number, depending on what method the person or company recommending that method used to arrive at that number. 7.46 seems to be a good reliable number and a reasonable comparative rule of thumb.
To be certain that your fermentation is complete, take two readings 24 hours apart. If there is any difference in the readings, the fermentation is not complete.
The danger of bottling a brew that hasn't finished fermenting is that it will continue to ferment in the bottle with possibly disastrous results. This is where the hydrometer is probably the best safety item you can own as a brewer.
If you're bottling in PET plastic bottles, it's not too bad.
The way to check is to give the bottles a squeeze. If they're slightly soft, then secondary bottle fermentation is underway and there is still a while to go before your beer is carbonated. If the bottle is quite firm and it's a week or so since you bottled, then all is well and it's quite alright to chill a bottle and do a taste and aesthetic test. If the bottle is rock hard and it's only a few days in, you may be in trouble.
If there is excess pressure when you check how the aging is going, you can release some of the CO2 gas build-up by unscrewing the lid a little and then re-tightening. However, if it goes unchecked the bottle may rupture and spill your precious, precious beer on the floor and make a sticky mess in the worst case or you may just end up with gushers, where the beer gushes out of the bottle as soon as you uncap it, much like a bottle of Coke that has been dropped or shaken.
However, bottling in glass is a different matter. You can't check if there is excess pressure except by opening a bottle and pouring a serve. If it is over-pressurised, you will have a gusher.
This is a serious and dangerous situation.
Check with your local home brew shop or an experienced brewer before attempting this. Get knowledgeable, experienced advice that is relevant to your situation. I accept no responsibility for your actions under any circumstances.
The usual procedure is to put on as much heavy protective cloting as possible: full face welding mask or helmet, motorcycling leather jacket and gauntlets and go outside with the entire batch to uncap it very gently one at a time, let it breathe for thirty seconds and then recap it. If this over-pressure condition is unchecked you quite probably will end up with what is referred to as 'bottle bombs'.
Bottle bombs are quite literally that. Shards of glass being propelled at high speed. Definitely a major safety issue. Potentially quite deadly. I've seen photos on a brewing forum where a longneck bottle, or at least half of it, was stuck in the ceiling having been driven through the Gyprock by the sheer force of the explosion. The brewer had bottled too early and there had been an explosion a little under a week later. It was in his laundry, so no one was hurt - just piles of broken glass and beer everywhere.
One of the worst parts of bottle bombs is that it can often cause a chain reaction. One explodes and then the rest also explode owing to the concussion of the first one's blast. My grandfather managed to do this once during WWII in his garage and then was banned from brewing by his wife. You have been warned.
My recommendation is to start off bottling in PET bottles. Do a few batches to gain confidence and competence. In the meanwhile, drink plenty of commercial brew that comes in good quality, thick, heavy glass bottles and good strong boxes which you can re-use for bottling and storage later. At least that was my excuse.
So, to recap:
* Hydrometer good. It's certainly your bestest buddy in brewing.
* Bottling early bad. You can become your own worst enemy and perhaps kill or maim others.
As with anything in life, be sensible, read the manual and get advice from someone with experience and everything will be sweet and easy.
Cheers!!
Basically, a hydrometer is a weighted glass or plastic quasi-cylindrical device which has a calibrated scale on the upper end. There are many kinds of hydrometers for specific purposes, but we'll just stick to talking about the ones used in brewing.
It can tell you when fermentation is in progress or if it's complete and with a little simple mathematics you can even work out the alcohol percentage of your beer. Pretty awesome for a tool with no moving parts, isn't it?
Here's what it looks like:
The one in the pic is a slightly fancy one with some additional scales on the other side of it for approximate grammes of sugar per litre and alcohol percentage, as well as approximate OG and FG for beer and wine. We'll just focus on the scale which is most important to us as brewers: the specific gravity scale, as shown in the photograph.
There are three terms you need to know:
* SG - Specific Gravity: A measure of the density of the liquid comparative to water.
* OG - Opening Gravity or Original Gravity: The specific gravity of the wort prior to pitching the yeast.
* FG - Final Gravity: The specific gravity of the competed fermentation.
Each different brand of hydrometer may have slightly differing instructions as to how to read it. In the case of this one, the reading is taken at the upper end of the meniscus. It's calibrated to 20C which is usual for Australia. Other parts of the world use different calibration temperatures. Read the documents that came with yours so that you know.
Using it is very, very easy:
* Take a sample of the brew to be measured in a suitable container
* Insert hydrometer gently
* Twirl it a little to remove any gas bubbles which might be adhering to the bulb and let go
* Take reading and use the information wisely.
Take a look at this pic:
The pic is showing a reading of about 1011. This is the FG for a rather tasty English Ale - an ordinary bitter - which is in my fermenter at the moment, having completed fermentation and now being ready to bottle later today.
When you draw the sample, do it gently so that you don't put a head on it. If you put a head on it, you will need to wait for that to go away so you can get a good reading. Also purge the tap a little at first as there will usually be yeast and trub (waste by-product of the brewing process) in the tap, which would cause a false reading.
In the case of this brew, the OG was 1049 and the FG is 1011. From this, we can work out how much alcohol by volume as a percentage (ABV%) is present.
Here's the formula according to Coopers (www.coopers.com.au): (OG - FG)/7.46 = ABV%.
In this case, it would be:
(1049 - 1011) = 38
38 / 7.46 = 5.09%
Because you will be bottling it, you need to add 0.5% to account for the secondary fermentation from the priming sugar in the bottle.
Therefore, this beer will end up at 5.59% approximately after bottle conditioning.
There are different methods of calculating ABV%. 7.46 is sometimes replaced with a lower or higher number, depending on what method the person or company recommending that method used to arrive at that number. 7.46 seems to be a good reliable number and a reasonable comparative rule of thumb.
To be certain that your fermentation is complete, take two readings 24 hours apart. If there is any difference in the readings, the fermentation is not complete.
The danger of bottling a brew that hasn't finished fermenting is that it will continue to ferment in the bottle with possibly disastrous results. This is where the hydrometer is probably the best safety item you can own as a brewer.
If you're bottling in PET plastic bottles, it's not too bad.
The way to check is to give the bottles a squeeze. If they're slightly soft, then secondary bottle fermentation is underway and there is still a while to go before your beer is carbonated. If the bottle is quite firm and it's a week or so since you bottled, then all is well and it's quite alright to chill a bottle and do a taste and aesthetic test. If the bottle is rock hard and it's only a few days in, you may be in trouble.
If there is excess pressure when you check how the aging is going, you can release some of the CO2 gas build-up by unscrewing the lid a little and then re-tightening. However, if it goes unchecked the bottle may rupture and spill your precious, precious beer on the floor and make a sticky mess in the worst case or you may just end up with gushers, where the beer gushes out of the bottle as soon as you uncap it, much like a bottle of Coke that has been dropped or shaken.
However, bottling in glass is a different matter. You can't check if there is excess pressure except by opening a bottle and pouring a serve. If it is over-pressurised, you will have a gusher.
This is a serious and dangerous situation.
Check with your local home brew shop or an experienced brewer before attempting this. Get knowledgeable, experienced advice that is relevant to your situation. I accept no responsibility for your actions under any circumstances.
The usual procedure is to put on as much heavy protective cloting as possible: full face welding mask or helmet, motorcycling leather jacket and gauntlets and go outside with the entire batch to uncap it very gently one at a time, let it breathe for thirty seconds and then recap it. If this over-pressure condition is unchecked you quite probably will end up with what is referred to as 'bottle bombs'.
Bottle bombs are quite literally that. Shards of glass being propelled at high speed. Definitely a major safety issue. Potentially quite deadly. I've seen photos on a brewing forum where a longneck bottle, or at least half of it, was stuck in the ceiling having been driven through the Gyprock by the sheer force of the explosion. The brewer had bottled too early and there had been an explosion a little under a week later. It was in his laundry, so no one was hurt - just piles of broken glass and beer everywhere.
One of the worst parts of bottle bombs is that it can often cause a chain reaction. One explodes and then the rest also explode owing to the concussion of the first one's blast. My grandfather managed to do this once during WWII in his garage and then was banned from brewing by his wife. You have been warned.
My recommendation is to start off bottling in PET bottles. Do a few batches to gain confidence and competence. In the meanwhile, drink plenty of commercial brew that comes in good quality, thick, heavy glass bottles and good strong boxes which you can re-use for bottling and storage later. At least that was my excuse.
So, to recap:
* Hydrometer good. It's certainly your bestest buddy in brewing.
* Bottling early bad. You can become your own worst enemy and perhaps kill or maim others.
As with anything in life, be sensible, read the manual and get advice from someone with experience and everything will be sweet and easy.
Cheers!!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Airlocks... A necessary evil.
When people get into home brewing, craft brewing or hand made beer - what ever you would like to call it - the one piece of equipment that gets the most attention is the humble airlock.
After all - it's the only visible sign to someone new to brewing that something is actually happening in the fermenter.
If you haven't taken the steps into brewing, I had better explain what it is, what it does and what goes wrong.
Basically, it's an 'S' shaped tube that is inserted into the lid of your fermenter. It has two fat bits at the top and the bottom of the 'S' and narrow tube in between. Sterile water (or similar) goes in the fat bits.
It sole purpose in life is to keep nasties out of your brew while venting carbon dioxide and other brewing gases from the fermenter.
The kinds of things it's designed to keep out are airborne pathogens - wild yeast, bacterial, etc as well as dust, bugs, etc.
Carbon dioxide is one of the major by products of fermentation. There are some other gaseous by-products, but they are inconsequential at this level. All excess gas needs to be vented else the fermenter would pressurise and perhaps rupture, spraying beery sticky goodness all over the room in which the fermenter sits. So, when the gas is coming out, the water lets it out and makes a delightful bubbling or blopping sound.
What goes wrong is actually pretty simple. There is not a whole lot to go wrong. No moving parts. No magic. Medieval technology. It's a tube with water in it.
What people perceive to be 'wrong' is that there is no airlock activity. No bubbling, no noise - nothing. It's not actually a defect: it means the gas is getting out somewhere else. in the same way that 'nature abhors a vacuum' and 'electrons follow the easiest path' so does CO2 being vented from a fermenter - it will take the easiest way out: A leak.
The usual suspects for leaks are the o-ring (if you have an o-ringed carboy or similar style fermenting vessel) and the grommet through which the airlock is installed.
If your fermentation has already started (i.e. you have pitched the yeast), then leave it alone and mess around with it when you're cleaning before the next brew. Taking the lid off unnecessarily is an invitation to infect the brew and make it not fit for drinking. What you can do at this time is investigate a little to see where the leak is.
The simplest investigation is to see if the airlock grommet is leaking. Boil and cool some water - about 100 mls is more than enough. Pour a little around the airlock grommet on top of the lid. If there is gas escaping, you will see some bubbles. You've found your leak! I'll tell you two ways to fix it in just a moment. Don't be tempted to use the old trick for finding gas leaks using soapy water. If it makes its way into the brew, you may well stuff the brew.
After this brew has finished and you're cleaning the fermenter, you can check the o-ring. Before we get to that, remember - the way to check that the brew is finished and fermentation is complete is that you have a matching Specific Gravity reading (which becomes your Final Gravity or FG) on two or more consecutive days.
After bottling or kegging (Why the hell are you reading this if you're kegging? You're already experienced!) and disassembling the fermenter and cleaning it to make ready for the next batch, check the o-ring. Look for kinks, breaks, big scratches or something contaminating the surface. Check the groove it fits into in the lid for the same defects. Finally, check the lip of the fermenter which the o-ring mates for the same defects, including roughness around the moulding seams. If you spot any defects here, rectify those.
When you next are installing the lid, make the o-ring a little wet with some boiled and cooled water. It will aid in spinning the lid down tight and giving a good gas tight seal. You don't need to screw it in super tight like a sexually frustrated silver back gorilla. A good firm seal is quite adequate. It's easier to screw the lid on too tight than it is to unscrew it.
If you want to get fancy-schmansy about it, you can get some food grade lube and lubricate the o-ring before installing it into its groove and also wipe a little along the sealing face of the fermenter's lip. All very professional, but needless expense and extra things to clean even more thoroughly each batch. Recommended only for gluttons for punishment.
Now - on to fixing that airlock grommet leak!
There are three main things that can go wrong:
[1] The grommet is damaged or worn
[2] The grommet hole is too big or not a good fit
[3] The airlock's tube doesn't fit well with the grommet.
If the grommet is damaged, replace it. It's about fifty cents. It's worth keeping a spare grommet and a spare o-ring in case you have a disaster on brew day and your local home brew shop (LHBS) is closed - like mine is on Sundays.
Otherwise, improving the fit of the airlock and grommet to each other needs to be attended to. The easiest way is to use some teflon plumber's tape to increase the girth of the airlock. Wrap a few layers aound the part of the tube which goes into the airlock. Make a smooth job of it so that it can slide into the grommet easily but with a bit of resistance. This will give it a tighter fit in the grommet, at the same time forcing the grommet to fit the hole more tightly.
So, overall, the airlock is a necessary evil and a source of needless worry for new members of the brewing world.
Please, remember - don't go to brewing forums and cry about 'my airlock isn't bubbling'. You will be told to 'RDWHAHB' (relax, don't worry and have a home brew) - which frankly a bit insensitive because that's what you want to be doing a few weeks after starting brewing. So instead, sit back, have a crap commercial and be patient for thine brew will be the sweet nectar of the gods.
Cheers!!
After all - it's the only visible sign to someone new to brewing that something is actually happening in the fermenter.
If you haven't taken the steps into brewing, I had better explain what it is, what it does and what goes wrong.
Basically, it's an 'S' shaped tube that is inserted into the lid of your fermenter. It has two fat bits at the top and the bottom of the 'S' and narrow tube in between. Sterile water (or similar) goes in the fat bits.
Pic of an airlock in action.
It sole purpose in life is to keep nasties out of your brew while venting carbon dioxide and other brewing gases from the fermenter.
The kinds of things it's designed to keep out are airborne pathogens - wild yeast, bacterial, etc as well as dust, bugs, etc.
Carbon dioxide is one of the major by products of fermentation. There are some other gaseous by-products, but they are inconsequential at this level. All excess gas needs to be vented else the fermenter would pressurise and perhaps rupture, spraying beery sticky goodness all over the room in which the fermenter sits. So, when the gas is coming out, the water lets it out and makes a delightful bubbling or blopping sound.
What goes wrong is actually pretty simple. There is not a whole lot to go wrong. No moving parts. No magic. Medieval technology. It's a tube with water in it.
What people perceive to be 'wrong' is that there is no airlock activity. No bubbling, no noise - nothing. It's not actually a defect: it means the gas is getting out somewhere else. in the same way that 'nature abhors a vacuum' and 'electrons follow the easiest path' so does CO2 being vented from a fermenter - it will take the easiest way out: A leak.
The usual suspects for leaks are the o-ring (if you have an o-ringed carboy or similar style fermenting vessel) and the grommet through which the airlock is installed.
If your fermentation has already started (i.e. you have pitched the yeast), then leave it alone and mess around with it when you're cleaning before the next brew. Taking the lid off unnecessarily is an invitation to infect the brew and make it not fit for drinking. What you can do at this time is investigate a little to see where the leak is.
The simplest investigation is to see if the airlock grommet is leaking. Boil and cool some water - about 100 mls is more than enough. Pour a little around the airlock grommet on top of the lid. If there is gas escaping, you will see some bubbles. You've found your leak! I'll tell you two ways to fix it in just a moment. Don't be tempted to use the old trick for finding gas leaks using soapy water. If it makes its way into the brew, you may well stuff the brew.
After this brew has finished and you're cleaning the fermenter, you can check the o-ring. Before we get to that, remember - the way to check that the brew is finished and fermentation is complete is that you have a matching Specific Gravity reading (which becomes your Final Gravity or FG) on two or more consecutive days.
After bottling or kegging (Why the hell are you reading this if you're kegging? You're already experienced!) and disassembling the fermenter and cleaning it to make ready for the next batch, check the o-ring. Look for kinks, breaks, big scratches or something contaminating the surface. Check the groove it fits into in the lid for the same defects. Finally, check the lip of the fermenter which the o-ring mates for the same defects, including roughness around the moulding seams. If you spot any defects here, rectify those.
When you next are installing the lid, make the o-ring a little wet with some boiled and cooled water. It will aid in spinning the lid down tight and giving a good gas tight seal. You don't need to screw it in super tight like a sexually frustrated silver back gorilla. A good firm seal is quite adequate. It's easier to screw the lid on too tight than it is to unscrew it.
If you want to get fancy-schmansy about it, you can get some food grade lube and lubricate the o-ring before installing it into its groove and also wipe a little along the sealing face of the fermenter's lip. All very professional, but needless expense and extra things to clean even more thoroughly each batch. Recommended only for gluttons for punishment.
Now - on to fixing that airlock grommet leak!
There are three main things that can go wrong:
[1] The grommet is damaged or worn
[2] The grommet hole is too big or not a good fit
[3] The airlock's tube doesn't fit well with the grommet.
If the grommet is damaged, replace it. It's about fifty cents. It's worth keeping a spare grommet and a spare o-ring in case you have a disaster on brew day and your local home brew shop (LHBS) is closed - like mine is on Sundays.
Otherwise, improving the fit of the airlock and grommet to each other needs to be attended to. The easiest way is to use some teflon plumber's tape to increase the girth of the airlock. Wrap a few layers aound the part of the tube which goes into the airlock. Make a smooth job of it so that it can slide into the grommet easily but with a bit of resistance. This will give it a tighter fit in the grommet, at the same time forcing the grommet to fit the hole more tightly.
Detail pic of a teflon wrapped airlock.
So, overall, the airlock is a necessary evil and a source of needless worry for new members of the brewing world.
Please, remember - don't go to brewing forums and cry about 'my airlock isn't bubbling'. You will be told to 'RDWHAHB' (relax, don't worry and have a home brew) - which frankly a bit insensitive because that's what you want to be doing a few weeks after starting brewing. So instead, sit back, have a crap commercial and be patient for thine brew will be the sweet nectar of the gods.
Cheers!!
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