Dave

I'm sort of in the same boat. Started late this summer with my
grandma's muscadine bush. She wanted to retire from making jelly. I
look forward to the 30# of muscadines it produces each year. Any way I
bought a starter kit but found myself wanting to start filling that
Pipeline Gary mentioned. I've opted for a pretty cheap route. I've
been buying my water in 3 gallon jugs used for those water coolers.
They fit a #10 stopper pretty good. So I use the water and then get to
use the jug. Yes, I've experienced all those problems mentioned with
them flexing. Worse than just air, the first time I picked one up it
sucked most of the water out of my air lock into the wine. I'm a
little worried about contamination on that batch. With a couple of
online orders for chemicals and supplies I think I'm set now for a
little while. I opted for the 3 gallon because since I'm new to the
hobby I'm kind of in experiment mode. I've only got a couple of
batches going now, got a pretty good delay from Hurricane Katrina. But
I just kicked off an apple the other day and look forward to start
filling that pipe some more.

Hap