Hail the auto siphon! (and some questions)

So yesterday I bottled my winter spice ale and was able to use my auto siphon for the first time. Wow, you guys weren't kidding. Made it so much easier, and no need to be sucking and spitting. (That doesn't sound so good, but I'm gonna go ahead and leave it up there.) Anyway, one thing I did notice that I have never had be an issue before was that as I got to the bottom of my batch the bottling wand thingy stopped working. I couldn't figure it out so pulled it off the hose and rinsed it out and eventually dislodged a plug of hop/ground spice material. Hooked it back up. 1 bottle later, same story. I figured I this wasn't working so dumped the remainder into a BIAB sack in my kettle and siphoned off the rest on the outside of the sack. The only think I can figure is that the bottom on the auto siphon was letting in materials that my racking cane bottom was keeping out as nothing else was different. I think going forward I might wrap the auto siphon piece in the mesh sack before starting the bottling and filter it that way. Alternately I suppose I could dump my wort into a sack before fermentation and just pull that out when I go to bottle. Wondering what you think? Has anyone else had this issue and found a simple way to keep it from happening again?

Thanks!

Are you using the inverted cup on the end of the auto siphon? It should work the same as a racking cane. Maybe you just had more particles than usual.

Be sure not to place the bottom of the siphon all the way down into the yeast cake. Doing this avoids stirring up to much sediment reducing the clarity of you beer and it will keep the siphon fairly clear. I have placed a black line on the top of my siphon where the absolute lowest spot I want to place the siphon, an inch or two from the bottom, so that when I place the tube into the beer I know how low is too low. It has been helpful for me. Alternatively, you can place a hop sack or some cheese cloth on the end of the siphon to help filter sediment. Hope that helps.

ncbrewer said:

Are you using the inverted cup on the end of the auto siphon? It should work the same as a racking cane. Maybe you just had more particles than usual.

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I purchased the auto siphon used from another brewer so not sure it it is missing any parts, but it looks like it has an inverted cup thing down there. I'm just wondering if the opening is bigger or something. Possible it was just a more sedimenty batch I guess I'll see what happens with ny next batch. Then again putting some cheesecloth over the end of it seems like a pretty simple fix so I might just do that to be on the safe side.

dkeller12 said:

Be sure not to place the bottom of the siphon all the way down into the yeast cake. Doing this avoids stirring up to much sediment reducing the clarity of you beer and it will keep the siphon fairly clear. I have placed a black line on the top of my siphon where the absolute lowest spot I want to place the siphon, an inch or two from the bottom, so that when I place the tube into the beer I know how low is too low. It has been helpful for me. Alternatively, you can place a hop sack or some cheese cloth on the end of the siphon to help filter sediment. Hope that helps.

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The black line is a good idea I might just have to steal. The challenge I have is in keeping the siphon from going too low, but also being able to manage filling the bottles. I guess using a clip of some kind or some tape I could affix the siphon to the side of the bucket so it doesn't go all the way down while also allowing me free use of my hands. With no down side to putting a hop sack on the end I might just do that too. Thanks!

Use the auto siphon to rack to your bottling bucket, batch prime, and attach the bottling wand to the spigot of the bottling bucket.
When you are racking to the bottling bucket you will be able to hold the siphon just above the trub layer so no sediment is transferred.
To get the most beer out of the fermentor it works to tilt the fermentor with a piece of 2 x 4 the day before.

Hey yypjpv....what recipe did you use? Looking to brew an extract Xmas Spice Ale....just curious!!

Like flars has said, it sounds as though you are trying to bottle right from your fermentor which is difficult to do without stirring up sediment. Get a bottling bucket with a spigot at the bottom. Attach a tube and bottling wand to the spigot and bottle away. I use a small 4 inch piece of tubing from the spigot to the wand and lift the bottles up to the wand and you have perfect control and no clogs. The bottling bucket is the best way to go.

Ballardinho said:

Hey yypjpv....what recipe did you use? Looking to brew an extract Xmas Spice Ale....just curious!!

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I used this with some slight modifcations:

https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/1640-winter-spiced-ale-style-profile

dkeller12 said:

Like flars has said, it sounds as though you are trying to bottle right from your fermentor which is difficult to do without stirring up sediment. Get a bottling bucket with a spigot at the bottom. Attach a tube and bottling wand to the spigot and bottle away. I use a small 4 inch piece of tubing from the spigot to the wand and lift the bottles up to the wand and you have perfect control and no clogs. The bottling bucket is the best way to go.

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I actually did transfer from the fermenter to a bucket, just not one that has a spigot. I figured the one transfer would have been enough to leave the big stuff behind but I guess it got through. I'll have to look at getting a bucket with a spigot, sounds like its much easier!

flars said:

Use the auto siphon to rack to your bottling bucket, batch prime, and attach the bottling wand to the spigot of the bottling bucket.
When you are racking to the bottling bucket you will be able to hold the siphon just above the trub layer so no sediment is transferred.
To get the most beer out of the fermentor it works to tilt the fermentor with a piece of 2 x 4 the day before.

Click to expand...

Great suggestions which I will implement. I think my mistake was when I was transferring to the bucket I rested the siphon right at the bottom, only pulling it away from the trub as it got near the bottom of the batch. (And I really need to get myself one of those spigot buckets.) Thanks!