auto siphon and accidental aeration

O.k. so, I'm siphoning my mead off the lees and most of it went very smoothly with minimal aeration. Unfortunately, the nice even flow stopped with about 4 or 5 inches of mead sitting on top of the lees (5 gal carboy) I could pump it out but I'm afraid that will add too much air.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Erica

Just siphon down until you start to pick up a small amount. It'll settle out again as the other particulates settle out.....

And sulphite it too.....

But what about the air? I can't get the last 5 inches without pumping the siphon constantly. It puts about as much air into the carboy as it does mead.

There is something wrong with your siphon. Maybe the carboy you're siphoning from isn't up high enough or there is a slight leak where the tubing connects?

I could be completely incorrect here; I'm no fluid dynamics expert. What is the difference in height between the vessel you are racking from to the one you are racking to? It might not be great enough to hold a siphon

Use a manual siphon. Lower the racking cane end in, suck the liquid through the tube most of the way, clamp the tube to hold the liquid, dip the end of the tube you had in your mouth, in sulphites or sanitiser, put the end of the tube into receiver and remove the clamp......

Bingo..... you just need to hold the base of the racking cane on the sediment level......

If you can find a racking cane it works very well especially if you twist tie a coffee filter across the bottom. But I have received some jokes on my behalf about having it. But it's cheap (around $10.00 or so) and is a great asset. My only complaint is that it can't get every last drop like most people like to do. I'd rather take all that I can that's with zero sediment and not risk the last little bit getting full of it. But I've only been doing this a couple of years so my experience is still to be improved.

IMO the threat of oxidation inspires way too much hand-wringing. Don't worry about it.

huesmann said:

IMO the threat of oxidation inspires way too much hand-wringing. Don't worry about it.

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You're correct of course, but many here come from beer making don't they, and as we learn, the beer making world (probably correctly) can be rather anal about it......

I would pump it in and then add sulfites. The sulfites help prevent oxidation. That being said I've had to pump in some wine on racking and didn't sulfite it and it was fine.

I had issues with one of those cheap plastic auto-siphons where it wouldn't seal up correctly and part way through it would start to suck in air. It was a problem with the rubber seal on the inside cane not being wet enough to seal against the outside cane, so I make sure to leave enough sanitizer in there to make the rubber seal nice and wet and it seems to work better.

Thanks for all the advice. I am just being extra careful because the first batch I made had a nasty "rubber tire" taste and I didn't want to wast more honey as it's kind of expensive.

fatbloke said:

You're correct of course, but many here come from beer making don't they, and as we learn, the beer making world (probably correctly) can be rather anal about it......

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Perhaps. I wonder if the relatively lower ABV of beer lends itself to oxidation more than mead/wine. I'm not into beer so I have no clue.