glass auto siphon

I had my first infection which was probably due to my airlock going dry or any number of little things, but I'm taking this time to slowly switch to all glass and stainless, because my plastic stuff is pretty old and eventually will probably cause an infection.

I have a stainless steel racking cane. I was thinking, why not get a glass blower to make an outer tube, stick a silicone grommet on the racking cane, and I've got myself a stainless and glass auto siphon? I have no idea on the rates, but I'm assuming closing up the end of a glass tube and sticking a slit at the edge wouldn't be too hard. Then again, I don't really know anything about glass blowing. Should I look into this?

my issue with racking canes as a whole is cleaning at the bend. I have brushes with long handles that i run through my racking cane, sight glasses, and tubing. They all come very clean except for the racking cane right at the bend. I have to use oxiclean (or PBW) and beer line cleaner to fully clean that section. Like all other plastic bits in my brewery, i replace them around 1x a year.

You also need the 1 way valve inside the autosiphon to make it work, (so you need a silicone grommet on the racking cane, and a flapper valve at the bottom of the glass tube). Take apart your autosiphon, and in the plastic tip you'll find a rubber flapper valve. That's the key to making the autosiphon work....not sure how you could rig one up with a blown glass tube.

im wondering if all the valves and "junk" in the auto syphon was what was harboring the bacteria.

There was someone on here talking about fabricating stainless steel autosiphons. Might be a better (and cheaper) solution.

Yup, got a thread going about a SS version... Hope to have CAD drawings of the design this week, with a rapid prototype within another week of that. Then it's just a matter of finding out who can manufacturer it to spec, and at a good rate... :rockin:

I would go with the SS vice blown glass. We have/had some blown glass and it's pretty fragile. I suppose if you were extra careful you would be okay but I would end up banging it on the bottom and now I have another problem.

Fwiw you can buy boroscilicate (Pyrex) tubes pre made. It's the raw material that any hollow form glass flame worker (read: piper) uses. Getting someone to close an end is easy but I bet any valves etc could be mounted to the open end if you could find the right sized pieces.

there were some diy auto-siphons on here, that used a sucking motion but stayed sanitary. I would try to come up with a different way to start a siphon, rather than just mimicking the current auto-siphon

Wakadaka said:

there were some diy auto-siphons on here, that used a sucking motion but stayed sanitary. I would try to come up with a different way to start a siphon, rather than just mimicking the current auto-siphon

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Would Some kind of squeeze bulb work?

rekoob said:

I would go with the SS vice blown glass. We have/had some blown glass and it's pretty fragile. I suppose if you were extra careful you would be okay but I would end up banging it on the bottom and now I have another problem.

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True, but over the years you learn to be very careful when brewing, especially if you drink a bit while doing it. I start my siphon like it's made of glass anyways because I never want to kick up any yeast.

If someone could explain how to start a siphon with a bulb...I have a turkey baster a few feet away.

Something like using a turkey baster is more along the lines of what I was thinking.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/flyguys-t-siphon-3-replacement-autosiphon-25774/

check out that thread

A large 18" turkey baster has worked for me: sanitize the baster, squeeze the air out, hold it tightly to your siphon tubing, and release.

Now I have a CO2 tank that I use with carboy caps. Set to 2 psi and open the valve for a second.

orangehero said:

Now I have a CO2 tank that I use with carboy caps. Set to 2 psi and open the valve for a second.

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+1. been doing this a long time now.

http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=47611