help with bottling

I bottled today but I had to tape the bottle filler to the bottling spigot because it kept falling out. What is the right way to attach your filler to the spigot? I have some tube and a little piece of plastic attachment but I could never get it to work. The plastic tubing would not fir on the spigot and the plastic attachment got stuck inside the siphon tube, I had to cut the tube. Do I just get bigger tubing? It is just a fraction to small to fit over the spigot.

What can I do? Bottling was a real pain in the ass today, and it would have been worse but I had a partner. I want to be able to bottle by myself.

I am planning on moving to kegs sometime around Christmas I hope, but until then I need to get the bottling procedure down.

One more thing, I boiled the priming solution for 5 minutes and let cool, but when I came to check on it a paper towel had found it's way into the solution. So I boiled another batch but this time it only cooled for about 6-7 minutes. I didn't see any specifics in the brew instructions on how cool to get it it simply said let cool. Did I mess that up? I figured it is only 2 cups of solution and if it's not boiling HSA won't be an issue.

Question #1 - Yes. Get bigger tubing. You only need aq piece about 2" long. It should fit over the spigot on your bottling bucket and (depending on your wand) over the wand.

Question #2 - Even two cups of boiling water mixed with 5 gal of 70 deg beer is not going to do significant damage. It may kill yeast directly in contact with the two cups as they are poured in, but it won't kill enough to keep you from carbing the bottles.

Homebrew equipment suppliers sell the standard vinyl hose in different diameters. The one that works with my bottling wand & bottling bucket spigot is the same diameter that came with my original kit. I bought a replacement a while back, I think it's 5/16", but your equipment may vary.

I never cool my priming solution. It goes right into the bucket, boiling hot, just after I start racking into the bottling bucket. As the previous post says, 2 cups isn't enough to kill more than a tiny fraction of the yeast involved before the temperature of that 2 cups is brought down close to the ambient.

Hot water will soften the tubing and allow it to stretch over the spigot.

I broke two auto siphons trying to force stiff cold tubing onto them.