Tubing/spigot dillema - Noob here

Hey all, I'm not so sure where to put this, so I'm hoping this is the right place...

I've got plastic barrel fermentors which have holes in the bottom for a spigot, but I was a bit forgetful when buying my 2nd one and forgot to get another spigot (which wasnt really a very big deal since my LHBS is about 10 mins away, but thats irrelevant) so I went back and got another one, but it was different to my first one. What this meant was that the tubing that I bought, which miraculously fitted well into my first spigot (without even measuring ) doesn't fit the 2nd spigot I bought and it also doesnt fit the bottling wand thingy that I've got either.

At the momment I have just finished primary fermentation (this being my first brew ever) and so I will plug my tubing into the spigot in the primary fermentor and slowly drain out the wort/beer into my secondary fermentor. This should work alright if everything goes alright, but the problem will be when I want to start bottling in 2 weeks, since the tubing that I have is exactly the same diameter as the spigot on the 2ndary and the same diameter as the bottling wand. Unfortunatly I'm also not very handy so I have no idea how I am going to make things fit or how to get around this without getting some more tubing (and I'll say it again, I'm a bit toight with my money and I really don't want to spend more money). There may even be a solution that is completely different to what I am thinking, so any help would be appreciated.

Thx in advance -
Jean-Luc

Can you just siphon to the other fermenter and bottle from that?

I guess I could try, but the tubing I have is just plain food grade tubing not a siphon, also that would mean I would have to sanitise my other fermentor, then sanatise again for the next batch, also I have another kit ready to go (cider this time) which I will want to get into the primary in about a week...


Update/Edit: The spigot that I bought for my 2ndary didn't fit so I went back to my LHBS and swapped it for one that worked, which is the same as my primary and so i will b able to fit the tubing into my 2ndary's spigot now. All I need now is to figure out how to get the tubing to fit into/on/with my bottling wand tube thing, since they are the same in diameter. Maybe I'll have to try and put the wand straight into the spigot...

Given that you have a couple of spigot-equipped buckets, I'd suggest returning or simply forgetting about the bottling wand. In my mass of inherited and borrowed equipment, I have a bottling wand, but I've yet to use it. I just bottled directly from the spigot---much more control of fill level IMHO, and not as much foaming. Just make sure the spigot is sanitized.

Hmm, thx Evan, I guess I could just do that hehe, so simple I never really considered it. Wonder if using the tubing would add extra control and ease, since I would have a movable part that I could quickly pinch off if I had to. So if I was doing this how much head space would I leave in the bottle? It seemed to me that when using a bottling wand you could fill right up to the top, and the volume the wand took up was the perfect amount of space. I have to head over to the bottling/kegging section and do a search .

Dunno if I could return the wand though, since it came bundled with the starter kit I bought, maybe I could just resell it to someone else online.

I'd keep and use the wand. When you pull it off the bottom of the bottle, the flow just stops; whenever I turn off the spigot, it seems to keep trickling for a little bit. It just seems a lot more awkward having to turn on and off the spigot, and you would still need to use some tubing or something to get the beer into the bottle. If you just put the bottle up to the spigot and turn it on, the beer's going to splash into the bottle, aerate, and the beer will be more likely to go stale more quickly. The bottling wand ensures that the beer enters the bottle quietly.

I had an inkling that that might happen with the spigot, since it is sorta hard to control the liquid that is left in the tubing. I just dont know what to do with the wand, or rather how to connect it properly to my setup. Should I just try and see if it fits straight into the spigot?? Cos if I put the tubing into the spigot, the wand doesn't fit into the tubing... I was just thinking whether it would work if I bought a tiny bit of tubing as a connector of sorts - that is a larger peice of tubing that the tube that is connected to the spigot would fit into and on the other end of that larger tubing I could connect the wand. Would you think that it would work? What do u guys do?