Airlock on primary yet?

Im doing 18 gallons of merlot in a 30 gallon bucket, with about 11-12 in of head space, using towel to cover for now, pitched yeast 3 days ago. Sg yesterday was at 1.052, today sg is at 1.016. Am i still good with the towel covering or should i put the lid on with airlocks at this point? If still good with towel when should i cover and airlock primary. Also should i still be stirring the must at this point?

I was planning on racking into my demijohn at sg about 1.000 or so to finish off. Is that good? Thanks.

How fast is your SG still dropping?

If it were me, if it hadn't hit 1.00 by tonight, I would probably go ahead and put an airlock on it.
Whether or not it is needed, I don't know.

I would imagine that volume is still probably putting off significant amounts of CO2 right now, so you would probably be fine, but I would err on the side of caution.

Anyone.....?

From what you've said it's ready to go to secondary fermentation and then an airlock would be the best thing to protect it.

At this point you want to protect it as the off-gassing slows and oxygen becomes more of a hazard to your wine than a help. The yeast is about to die off and while that could take another 2 weeks or more it doesn't need all that oxygen.
There are lots of views on the best time to rack off and this link provides some info on that: http://winemakersacademy.com/secondary-fermentation/

I'm new, but I say rack it to secondary, add airlock.

You have a good fermentation going, I'd stick to your plan. If it slows and it's not dry in 3 or 4 more days, then I'd rack/airlock.

I kinda thought it was a bit early to go to secondary. I had to go out of town today so i put the lid and airlock on primary just to be safe. It is still going but i didnt have time to check sg this morn. Will do it tomorrow and see where it is at. I thought around sg of 1.000 is when to move to secondary anyway??

You can rack at 1.000.

I typically let the wine ferment to 0.990ish in primary and then rack. The reason is that I like keeping the active fermentation in primary. Plus I can top off a stabilized wine all the way, when I can't a fermenting wine. Personal preference.

Yea thats my thought to, but im worried keeping it that long in the barrel im using. I think now that i covered it with the air lock i should be ok. Just not sure it would be ok to ferment that long with towel over it. I would think sg of 1.000 would also be ok to rack and still top off, right?

@Stevelaz
I've had foaming issues so I don't top up all the way when I rack at 1.000. I leave some headspace for foam and top it up when I stabilize.