air bubbles in siphon tube

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caseymclain

caseymclain

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I may have bit off more than I can chew, however, on my first batch i bought a secondary fermenter, and after the 8th day transferred my beer to the secondary. I had a lot of problems with my autosiphon getting airbubbles in it, and having hops and stuff clog it up (i think I will strain tomorrow's batch that will go into the freshly cleaned primary) I was wondering if anyone had any advice how to avoid getting hops into the siphon if I choose to dry hop on a later brew?
 
The bubbles are usually a result of the restriction. There are a couple of ways to combat the clogging.

You could just keep the siphon above the trub level and just leave a bit of beer behind. I use a racking cane which has a little plastic fitting over the end to help not pick up as much trub. On top of this I use a piece of a cut up very fine grain bag over the end of the cane that is in the beer. I sanitize it and secure it with a sanitized rubber band. You still can't plow it down into the heavy trub level though or it will clog, but it seems to help a lot.

I'm sure there are several other good methods being used by members here and you'll probably get some more good feedback, then just pick what works best for your set-up and equipment.
 
Seeing little air bubbles is normal. It's just from co2 produced by the yeast. As far as the clogging, I would give you the same advice as Zen, don't put your autosiphon down to the bottom of the fermentor. Keep it above the trub and leave a little beer behind.
 
Bubbles are usually caused at the point where the line meets the racking cane- loose fit. This is NOT good, as you are oxygenating your beer after fermentation - leading to a wet cardboard flavor that overpowers any nice beer flavors.

Racking Cane to Tubing must be a tight fit. If you have a tight fit there, if the bubbles are coming up the cane from the beer, then it's CO2 coming out of solution, which is not bad for the beer. A few bubbles are fine, but excessive bubbles are hard to fight as it's easy to lose the siphon. Try to cool the carboy before transfer (several hours in the fridge?) if this is a persistent problem.
 
+1 To what Hang Glider said. Make sure that hose is a snugly on your racking cane otherwise you're going to be pulling outside oxygen into the beer are you transfer it. Trust me, I know this the hard way.
 
Get a paint strainer bag from Home Depot. It's a very fine nylon mesh. rubber band it over the bottom of your siphon tube.
 
Also +1 to Hang Glider's comment. Any small tears or wearing on the rubber seal at the bottom of the cane will create bubbling.

Have some personal experience with that one - I was swinging the tube around to get excess sanitizing solution off of it... which is unnecessary i know... and i snapped of the top inch of the tube. Shredded the rubber seal when inserting the cane, and also the cane position was way off, pushed all the way down to the bottom. Terrible bubbling.

When I pulled the cane out about an inch the bubbling reduced by quite a bit, so I wonder if the position of the cane has any effect on the bubblies.
 
I had the same issue with bubbles and I took the next size down tubing, and boiled the end and put it on my racking cane. It worked for me.
 
Digging up an old thread because other beginners need to beware. Bought the AHS basic siphon kit with many other things to get started. Just bottled my first batch and think I ruined it after 3 weeks in primary. My siphon would suck in air at the top where the pickup meets the tubing. Re-primed with Starsan twice and used two plastic clamps and two areas of safety wire but each time a large swirling, fizzing bubble would form . Not until I had 3 gal transferred did all the O2 start to disappear. Experienced the same frustration when I then bottled. I fear my first batch - smooth process until now - is ruined. My wife couldn't believe the complete failure of the thing. It actually just irritated me the whole time. She's kinda turned off of brewing now and suggested I just buy decent beer. I am surprised AHS spends such effort ensuring a good kit experience for noobs but still offers this. I'm no pro but it could guarantee failure.
After the priming sugar is added and at 11pm is the wrong time to see that these are junky parts. I was out of options then.
We'll see in a few weeks but my hopes are not high.
JMO,
Dave
 
dmar836 said:
Digging up an old thread because other beginners need to beware. Bought the AHS basic siphon kit with many other things to get started. Just bottled my first batch and think I ruined it after 3 weeks in primary. My siphon would suck in air at the top where the pickup meets the tubing. Re-primed with Starsan twice and used two plastic clamps and two areas of safety wire but each time a large swirling, fizzing bubble would form . Not until I had 3 gal transferred did all the O2 start to disappear. Experienced the same frustration when I then bottled. I fear my first batch - smooth process until now - is ruined. My wife couldn't believe the complete failure of the thing. It actually just irritated me the whole time. She's kinda turned off of brewing now and suggested I just buy decent beer. I am surprised AHS spends such effort ensuring a good kit experience for noobs but still offers this. I'm no pro but it could guarantee failure.
After the priming sugar is added and at 11pm is the wrong time to see that these are junky parts. I was out of options then.
We'll see in a few weeks but my hopes are not high.
JMO,
Dave
Click to expand...
Is this an auto siphon or a racking cane? Sometimes the wrong diameter tubing is sold with the siphon devices. The tubing should be snug enough that it can only be twisted on after wetting with sanitizer.
 
My tip 1. is to store your auto syphon in separate parts, this helps the seal stay larger than the tube so a better fit.
Tip 2 . Always wet the tube and seal when they are put together, (with starsan) never move the syphon up or down when it's dry.
Tip 3. The syphon tube arrangements invite grief whenever the inside diameter of the joined tubes get bigger
 
It's hard to know what's happening based on your explanation, but it sounds like their is air leaking IN from the where the tubing meets the racking cane? If it's an auto-siphon give it another solid pump and see if you can push that pocket of air out. If it's sucking in air via venturi because of a bad fit between the tubing and the cane, that can be fixed with proper clamp (zip tie was clever btw), better fitting tubing, or both. If it's neither, then I'm not sure how to help.
 
This is the standard "basic siphon". Indeed the leak was from poorly fitting tubing. Unfortunately, multiple clamps and the safety wire didn't fix it. I thought I had it fixed when testing it as the leaking was greatly reduced when playing in the Starsan. Then again when transferring to the bottling bucket(carboy)as it cleared the air after about 2 or so gallons. Of course I had already added the priming sugar so didn't want to take a day to get different tubing. The problem reappeared as we began bottling.
I can accept blame for not testing and retesting but I wouldn't have thought AHS would have put in tubing that was too loose. I think the next nominal size tubing down would be too small.
I'm sure a trip to the garage could seal it but not during the racking process with my wife waiting up.
Just disappointed and venting for not fabbing my own.
Thanks for the helpful replies.
Dave
 
Either stretching or reducing or indeed bending the plastic tubing, then putting it in boiling water for about a minute, then immediately plunging into cold water will often hold the plastic pipe in its new shape.
 
Another tip for auto siphons, put a bit of sanitizer in the top of the siphon so that it sits above the plunger.

I found that this can help create a better suction and prevent air from getting in when your pulling it up to start the siphon.
 
dmar836 said:
This is the standard "basic siphon". Indeed the leak was from poorly fitting tubing. Unfortunately, multiple clamps and the safety wire didn't fix it. I thought I had it fixed when testing it as the leaking was greatly reduced when playing in the Starsan. Then again when transferring to the bottling bucket(carboy)as it cleared the air after about 2 or so gallons. Of course I had already added the priming sugar so didn't want to take a day to get different tubing. The problem reappeared as we began bottling.
I can accept blame for not testing and retesting but I wouldn't have thought AHS would have put in tubing that was too loose. I think the next nominal size tubing down would be too small.
I'm sure a trip to the garage could seal it but not during the racking process with my wife waiting up.
Just disappointed and venting for not fabbing my own.
Thanks for the helpful replies.
Dave
Click to expand...

The next size down for tubing will give you a tight fit, one sixteenth inch. When I bought my auto siphon they gave me the smaller tubing, mentioning the size problem. Worked well for a couple of years until the tubing hardened and became oval. Cut an inch off to fix that problem.
 
I bought a hose clamp and give it a crank or two where the hose meets the auto siphon. Works great and is easy to use.
128x128_2280_Def.jpg
 

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