frustrated with siphons

I'm sick of siphons.

I have the blow start kind for carboys, and I have a thief style pump one with a clip to attach to a carboy/bucket.

The blow start works the best IMO, but risks contamination.

The thief style almost ALWAYS ends up dipping too far into the trub for my liking and sucking up nastiness.

My last batch (about the 15th now) I ended up disturbing the trub a TON and I am willing to bet I will have some very cloudy beer. Dang it.

Anyone have a better way?

I get frustrated with the auto-siphon whennracking frmm the brew pot to the fermenter. No matter how careful I am it get clogged, rather quickly, with hops and is a real pain to clean. I end up pouring through a sanitized screen type strainer. On my next batch I am skipping the auto-siphon completely. Most the more experienced brewers on this forum suggest not worry too much about what goes from kettle to fermenter.

For racking to the bottling bucket the auto-siphon works fine.

If you don't want to hold your autosiphon you could just get a clip holder to keep it above the trube. Or double rack. From carboy to another carboy or bucket and then let that sit a few hours and then siphon again to your bottleing bucket.

I like the T siphon on talked about on this site. works perfect every time.

Install a spigot about 2in from the botton on your carboy or bucket. If you use glass carboy, can't think of anything to help.
I use the better-bottle carboy and you can easily install a spigot. You open a hole and glue the nut to the outside of the carboy with epoxy. See photo below
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32962250@N05/3482152474/in/set-72157616828991366/

chrislehr said:

I'm sick of siphons.

I have the blow start kind for carboys, and I have a thief style pump one with a clip to attach to a carboy/bucket.

The blow start works the best IMO, but risks contamination.

Anyone have a better way?

Click to expand...

I agree. All you need to add is one of these: http://morebeer.com/view_product/16797/102363/Sanitary_Filter and no more contamination risk.

GT

What's wrong with holding the auto siphon for 3-5 minutes? Yeah, if you just let it sit at the bottom you're going to suck up a lot of trub, but it requires very little time/effort to hold it in place just above it. Or just get a big bag clip or something to hold it for you.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but when it comes time to rack a beer I just use one of those plastic clips that hold bags of chips closed to keep it above the trub or else I make sure I have a fresh pint of homebrew poured and within arm's reach while I stand there and hold the siphon for a few minutes. No clogging, no cloudy beer, and no fancy equipment required.

If you use an auto siphon, place it on the bottom of your fermenter and do not disturb it you will not get a bunch of trub. If you are, then you are doing it wrong.

marubozo said:

What's wrong with holding the auto siphon for 3-5 minutes? Yeah, if you just let it sit at the bottom you're going to suck up a lot of trub, but it requires very little time/effort to hold it in place just above it. Or just get a big bag clip or something to hold it for you.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but when it comes time to rack a beer I just use one of those plastic clips that hold bags of chips closed to keep it above the trub or else I make sure I have a fresh pint of homebrew poured and within arm's reach while I stand there and hold the siphon for a few minutes. No clogging, no cloudy beer, and no fancy equipment required.

Click to expand...

+1
I use a paper clip wound around the racking cane and make a hook to catch bottle neck, the angle holds it from slipping. The chip bag clip is how I will do it next time (in about fifteen minutes) Three 5 gallon moves. Wish I had remembered to get the bigger hose, I heard that speeds up the process a whole lot.

marubozo said:

What's wrong with holding the auto siphon for 3-5 minutes?

Click to expand...

It's a PITA. I got me a half-incher that cuts racking time down to maybe 90 seconds.:rockin:

how often do you practice with water? that would help instead of making your practice time the real deal. it helps for me to get the hang of the autosiphon.

I must be doing it wrong because every time I rack from the brew pot to the fermenter I get hops clogged in the auto-siphon. After cooling, I stir in order to create a whirlpool and let it sit for 15 minutes. I try to hold the siphon high in order to avoid any hop remnants, I use plugs. But bits of hops get caught. I do 3 gal. boils so that may affect it too.

why siphon from the kettle at all?

just pour through a strainer into your bucket (use a funnel if going into a carboy). You will lose some wort using a siphon and you want all the wort you can get!

MetallHed said:

why siphon from the kettle at all?

just pour through a strainer into your bucket (use a funnel if going into a carboy). You will lose some wort using a siphon and you want all the wort you can get!

Click to expand...

I had brewed years ago so i went with the old school way of doing things. My next batch I am just dumping into the fermenter.

944play said:

I got me a half-incher that cuts racking time down to maybe 90 seconds.:rockin:

Click to expand...

There's a sex joke in here somewhere.

I used siphons too for 2 years. Broke both. Now I use plain ole tubing. For 10 Gallon batches I rack with 3/8" ID tubing for speed. Other wise it's 1/4". One single piece of tubing filled with starsan and thumbs over both ends. Hold "out" side low and place "from" end into carboy. Release thumb over low end as you drop it into the keg. Voila. 1 piece of vinyl tubing to rise out and swing to dry.

I use an auto-siphon and a few minutes before I rack I place a book or something else under my bucket to tilt it and have all the trub settle on one side... that way I don't get any junk sucked up by the siphon and flows smoothly...

fermenter to fermenter, fermenter to bottling bucket - AutoSiphon

Kettle to Fermenter? use a valve on the kettle, or pour (carefully) into wide funnel - splashing of cooled wort is encouraged!

If it's trub you're worried about going from fermenter to bottling bucket get a paint strainer bag and put it on the end of the auto-siphon. I heard that tip here somewhere and since I started doing it little to know trub makes it into my bottling bucket.

use a the cap-end thingy on the bottom of the racking cane to keep the trub out. Also if space permits, keep the fermenter on a perch that is a few feet higher than the bottling bucket. Once I got the hang of it I've never had issues with the siphon. I've also found that not disturbing the fermenter at all before you siphon leaves all the sediment at the bottom and out of the next container.

I always move the fermenter that I am coming out of at least thirty minutes before starting. If you are careful any trub that loosens and gets wort cloudy is very minimal, and will settle back down in thirty minutes.

Marabozo, has it figured out, I can stay with the small tubing! That Chip Clip idea is great! I get the end right at the middle of fermenter clip it, start my manual siphoning, and both hands are free to do something else while I wait. Even when I heard it picking up air, and starting to loose it's prime, I just went over and pushed it down a touch and before it stopped, I was going again.

I use the Fermtech auto-siphon, which came with my original kit from Midwest. I consider it indispensable, but I use it only for racking to the bottling bucket, save for the infrequent times I use a secondary.

That 1/2 inch autosiphon looks pretty cool, though.....

I'm a 100% fan of the Easy Siphon available through morebeer.com When I started using better bottles, I tried the sterile siphon and nearly busted a brain vein trying to get it started. By the next batch, I had ordered an Easy Siphon. The only change I recommend is ordering a longer 1/2" hose (I went with about 5-6 feet). It draws beer wicked-fast and seems to dry easily since it's fat enough that air can flow through it. It is also long enough to go from my table top to a carboy on the floor, without precariously balancing it on a chair. Yes, I still tip the source (primary carboy) to get that last bit of beer, but the red (orange?) cap on the tip keeps most of the trub from running 'a muck.'

Anyhoo, that's my advice. Easy Siphon from MoreBeer.com

I should mention my method of siphoning by gravity which after many experiences has worked pretty well: Start with the fermenter on a perch about 3' higher than the next container (I've got ikea furniture stacked up in my fermentation/storage room), next put the racking cane with the end cap (to keep the trub out but allow liquid to pass) into the bucket; have a large bowl (I've used the brew pot before) with sanitizer/water and prime the transfer hose (as you would with a vacuum hose in a swimming pool; that is get all the air out of the hose), pull the transfer hose out of the sanitizer by both ends, hold one end a l little lower to drain then hold them equal so there is about 6" of air at either end of the hose, the rest of it filled with sanitized water. Holding both ends together at the same level, slide one end onto the racking cane which is sitting in the beer already, bring the other end of the transfer tubing down over the sanitizer bowl, the sanitizer in the hose will flow out, followed by the beer. Once it is just beer coming out put the end of the hose into the container you're transferring to (keep it next to the sanitizer bowl) and it should continue on it's own until all the beer has transfered. If I'm bottling I'll add the priming sugar at this time and use the flowing beer coming out of the hose to stir it up a little

I drilled out a carboy cap to hold my autosiphon.

passedpawn said:

I drilled out a carboy cap to hold my autosiphon.

Click to expand...

I like this idea. I have the auto siphon, but the clip it came with really doesn't hold it tight enough that I can pump it 1-2 times without pushing the siphon into the trub. Will try this next time.

If you are whirlpooling your wort then you should have an easy time transferring to your fermenter without a bunch of crap ending up in the fermenter.

I use an auto siphon and If I dry hop, I zip tie a new sanitized nylon stocking to the end of my hose at the bottom of the keg. So far this has left me with some very clear, and tasty, beers.

What do you think of siphons like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360272308833

?

MetallHed said:

why siphon from the kettle at all?

just pour through a strainer into your bucket (use a funnel if going into a carboy). You will lose some wort using a siphon and you want all the wort you can get!

Click to expand...

x2222222222222222222222222222222222222222 millionzillionbajillion

only time you need to use a racking cane/ auto siphon setup is from primary to secondary just put the auto siphon about half way down into the fermenter and slowly go down to the bottom with it as your siphon takes beer from primary to secondary... dump the wort right into the primary once it has reached 70 degrees or whatever your recipie calls for.

The siphoning method that I've used from day one is about as simple as it gets. I removed the rubber bulb from a turkey baster and I use the stem for a mouthpiece by putting the small end in the hose. I sanitize the hose, racking cane and tip, and the baster stem, then assemble everything. Then it's a simple matter to place the racking cane carefully in the carboy, suck lightly on the baster mouthpiece. The hose fills with beer and I simply remove the mouthpiece and put the end of the hose in the keg or bottling bucket. Works every time and you don't have to fumble around with filling hoses etc.