Most of the equipment used can be stuff found around the house, and bottles can be fished out of people’s recycling bins or reused if you drink bottled water. If you clean the bottles with dish detergent and let them soak in bleach for a few minutes, then rinse them well, you’ll have nothing to worry about. The rubber tubing can be found in Home Depot for about $4. It is intended for use with ice makers. You could also find it in aquarium stores or just about any hardware store, but may pay a bit more.
Be sure to use a different pot than the one you use to make the sugar water.
If you use 2-Litres, then instead of using balloons you can tighten the cap to just before it is fully sealed, which will let gas escape when it builds up but won’t let any in when it stops fermenting. Instead of a balloon, you can use a common fermenter airlock. They cost about $1. 50.
Another way you can remove the dead yeast is to strain your liquid through a properly cleaned cloth. Switching containers is not necessary; it’s done to get rid of the dead yeasty-beasties. Yeasty-beasties cloud the wine, taste bad and can give you diarrhea. Aesthetics count. It is difficult to be proud of cloudy wine but a crystal clear 14% wine is something to be proud of, regardless of how you did it or how cheap it tastes!
