auto siphon + bottling wand

I have an auto siphon that I successfully use to transfer beer, but I can't seem to get it to work with my bottling wand. Here's my process: Bottling bucket is on a table, bottles are on the floor. The auto siphon is wetted with sanitizer and I have a small piece of connector tubing that attaches snugly from the autosiphon tubing to the bottling wand. I depress the wand (allowing flow) and give the auto siphon a few pumps. Even with the wand activated, there is a lot of resistance from the siphon, creating some frothing in the tubing and not completely filling it. If I lift the bottling wand (prevent flow) the beer stays in the tubing near the bend of the auto siphon, so I think I have a good seal, but it never really fills the tubing down near the bottle filler. No matter what I do, beer will not completely fill the tubing. If I push on the bottling wand again the beer just pours back into the bucket instead of siphoning down into the bottles. So what am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any advice!

Hmm. Does your bottling bucket have a spigot? If so, go out the spigot. If not, I'd suggest getting a spigot.

And just to check- is the bottling wand below the bucket? Not to belittle you, but just to check- a siphon is dependent on gravity, so the destination must be lower than the source.

Bottling with a siphon is a real PITA, as it sounds like you discovered. After my first batch doing that I bought a bottling bucket with a spigot, problem solved.

My bucket does not have a spigot. And yes, the bottling wand is a few feet below the bucket, but I hear you - a common sense check is always a good start.

I have been bottling via siphon for quite awhile now. I haven't found it too difficult since the bottling wand holds the siphon. For some reason, I just can't get it started when using an auto siphon. It drives me crazy because it should work.

Try getting it started first without the bottling wand attached and clip off the end with a tube clamp. Then attach the bottling wand and bottle as normal.

Try this: start pumping the auto siphon to get some pressure built up, and then depress the bottling wand.

My auto siphon (you have to blow into one part of it) says to bend the tubing to allow some pressure to build up. That may or may not help you, but should be worth a shot.

I've tried pumping the auto siphon before activating the bottling wand - the pressure built up until it started squirting out of the tubing on the siphon end, but never did get down near the bottling wand. In the future I'll probably go with ridd's idea - get it started, then attach the wand. Or maybe just stick with my old non-auto-siphoning methods. Thanks for the tips!