Water or Vodka?

I read that putting vodka in the airlock during fermentation reduces the possibility of bacteria entering the fermenting wort as opposed to water, which bacteria will grow in. Is vodka in the airlock worth it or is it unnecessary? Also, will the vodka evaporate quickly?

you are really worried. I often use just water.

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personally, the fermenter, sicko!)
I guess that just a drop of bleach in 6 gallons is bugger all, but an airlock full of sanitising liquid would probably change your flavour a little! Cheap vodka, however, won`t.
I`ve seen many other posts on this question where the recommendation was simply water. For a beer, certainly should be OK too. If the airlock is going to be on there for a lengthy period (e.g. mead) then I`d guess that vodka would be better.

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<Snip> beside being a lot cheaper than aseptox, if leaved by itself for a while the extra oxigen evaporate and you are left with pure sanitized water. That is also the reason why you don`t have to rinse, you would just reaplace sanitized water with regular water that may contain a few germs.

if it is a problem. I suspect that it will last through your primary without trouble.
Oh yes, I have mostly seen references to using Everclear or a 150 proof Vodka.

Yes, I have lately put Idophor in my airlock. I usually use Glycerin, but I have not purchased more.

My handbook suggests to use a solution of water with 0,3% potassium pyrosulfite and 0, 02% citric acid (or lactic acid). Like Brett I often use just water. It is best however to use an airlock which has a reasonable size so that reflux of the liquid is not possible. This can happen due to a sudden rise of the atmospheric pressure.

FWIW, I have had some vodka in airlocks for extended periods with minimal evaporation (cider and cyser, so longer secondary than beer). Easy enough to top it up when it gets too low.

How about during the primary, does it evaporate as quickly then?

Suck back? If the yeast is doing its thing, and C02 pressure is maintained, how would you ever get suck back?

Have had this happen actually. A quick rise and fall of barometric pressure from a passing storm, and found most of the contents of the airlock gone. Was just water, so didn`t get real excited about it.

the first time, and tonight I put it in a starter. For about half an hour the airlock sucked air, dripping water into my starter wort. An hour later, it was beginning to bubble properly. So it does happen.

Consider the temp, if you set the air lock with a wort temp of say 74 and the temp drops to 62 over nite the pressure in the carboy drops, fermentation hasn`t become active to keep the pressure up, resulting in Suck Back. After this happened to me the first time, I took the advice and started using vodka, is the level gets low due to Suck Back or evaporation, add more. If you get a bit worred about brew take a hit from the vodka bottle.