Siphoning

What's the best way to siphon to secondary or bottling bucket without putting my mouth on the line and pretending I'm sucking gas out of a car?

most people would say an auto siphon is the way to go. I'm too cheap, and never bought one. I have two ways- one is a carboy cap. It has two, well, nipple things. You put your racking cane in one and blow in the other. The positive pressure causes it to siphon out. If I'm using a bucket, I do it the old fashioned way- fill the entire sanitized tube with water. Pinch it off, put it on the racking cane, put the racking cane in the bucket, and put the end in an empty pitcher. I open it, and the water goes into the pitcher. When it flows to beer, I pinch off the end, and put it in the vessel I'm racking to. It sounds like a huge PITA, and it would be for most people. But this is the way I learned, so I don't find it difficult at all. It did take LOTS of practice, though.

Lorena

I use the auto siphon and it has improved my enjoyment of the hobby. It is the easiest way to siphon my beer that I've ever tried.
If you don't want to purchase another piece of equipment, lorenae's method of filling the racking cane and tubing with water works well.
Those carboy caps look like they would work great. I've never used one but I've thought about it.

The carboy caps work perfectly; Walker's thread on his love affair with them is here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=2910

I use an auto siphon. It is money well spent and so easy.

reedequine said:

What's the best way to siphon to secondary or bottling bucket without putting my mouth on the line and pretending I'm sucking gas out of a car?

Click to expand...

you're already using the best way ... before you suck, moisten a napkin with some cheap vodka and put it over the hose first. its takes 3 seconds.

Thanks for all your replies. It is great having a forum such as this!

I just used my mouth to start the siphon for racking my first brew.


*crosses fingers*

I am having immoral thoughts Please stop!

I got a kit with a auto siphon in it and due to the fact that I had a racking hose that was all wound up and I was trying to straighten it as I was pulling on the auto siphon which didnt quite work at which point I pushed down on the auto siphon, too hard, and pushed off the end of the siphon and then said screw it and used my mouth which I had to try three times because the beer had to go through loops and I could not see it working.

Nice run on huh.

Long story short I slobbered all over the siphon, but have been drinking some of the best beer I have ever had the last week or so.

I plan I truing one of those carboy caps that look very simple and easy for one person

I use a flavor injecting syringe... take off the "needle" and the tip of it fits snugly in a 3/8" hose. SO I just immerse the racking cane, use the syringe to suck up the beer/wort, whatever, from the other end of the hose and tada, syphon!

Brewpilot

I have an auto-siphon now, but before I had it I used a turkey baster stuck onto the end of the hose and sucked on that. sometimes that got screwed up though. Doing higher alcohol brews helps a lot because if you screw up and get something dirty, a high alcohol brew is unlikely to get infected.

I use a method that is similar to other posters'. I fill up my racking cane and tubing with water, and use the pressure from this to siphon some sanitizer through it. I then clamp the tubing with the sanitizer in it and use the pressure from the sanitizer to siphon through some water to rinse it out. I then clamp the hose with some water in it to start siphoning the beer.

When I do this while racking, I usually just let some water into the secondary or bottling bucket along with the beer, because it doesn't really matter at that point.

Since you have to sanitize your tubing anyway, it doesn't seem like you could save all that much time with an autosiphon. Then again, I've never tried an autosiphon, so I could be wrong.

I've always started the siphon using my mouth and have had no problems. I know that it's considered a mortal sin here, but until I get round to buying an autosiphon or a batch gets horribly contaminated, I'll carry on It's just easier IMHO.

Footnote so I can't be held responsible by people who infect batches by mouth siphoning:

Mouth siphoning while pregnant harms your baby
Mouth siphoning is highly addictive: Don't start
Mouth siphoning can cause a slow and painful death

As described in my Guide: My First Homebrew, I use a carboy cap and an aquarium pump to push air into the carboy. Pressure building = beer flowing out. Less contamination risks than blowing air with your mouth into the cap.