Siphon - I must be missing something

Hi all.

I recently moved from Melbourne Australia to Montreal. I had to leave all my brew equipment behind so I've started again. In Aus I fermented in a cylindrical plastic drums with an airlock in the lid and a tap (spigot) fitted near the bottom. But I figured "while in Rome do as the Romans do" so I bought a 23 Litre bucket (5 Gal pail), a carboy for a secondary and a racking cane and tubing to siphon with which seems to be the way things are done here.

I must be missing something because siphoning seems to me to be really unreliable, wasteful and it exposes my beer to contamination. If siphoning is a good technique please tell me how to do it properly so I don't risk contamination while sampling and don't waste beer while sampling and bottling.

With my old equipment when I wanted a sample to check SG I used to just remove the airlock, put a cloth soaked in sanitiser over the airlock hole and then open the tap (spigot) to fill my hydrometer test jar. Now I have to remove the pail lid and dip a large pipette into my wort. It seems like I'm putting my wort at a much larger risk of contamination.

To move the wort from the primary to the seconday and from the secondary to the bottles I'm also using a siphon. In Aus I used to just fit a bottling cane to a tap (spigot) and open the tap. But now I'm using a siphon for that too. To get my siphon started I've been filling the siphon tube with sanitiser water and locking it closed before dipping it into the wort. This method means I'm siphoning a bit of beer into a waste bucket while I get the siphon started. This is wasting beer. How do I do this better?

Once I've got the beer into a bottling bucket I'm then siphoning beer into bottles. During bottling today the racking cane shifted twice and broke the siphon. I had to waste beer getting the siphon started again, and all the time the pail has no lid on it.

Am I doing it wrong? I must be. I can't believe removing the lid from the fermenter or bottling bucket is good as it's exposing my beer. I'm wasting beer while getting the siphon started. There must be a better way of getting a siphon started for racking and bottling. Obviously sucking on the tube is asking for contamination so I'm not going to do that.

I feel like going back to the way I used to do things, but I assume I'm just doing things the wrong way. What should I do differently to get my system working without wasting beer. How should I start siphons and how can I avoid having to re-start siphons?

Thanks,

Jaf.

Coreolis effect?

Alot of folks use the autosiphon.
I use the carboy cap method and push things along with CO2
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=2910&highlight=carboy
however that won't help you if you're talking buckets.

I can understand your frustration. I think people thing that the spigot is difficult to clean. Nothing stops you from using a bottling bucket or drilling and fitting a spigot on your bucket I guess.

Take a look into autosiphons.

I only use an autosiphon, to avoid the frustrations of a regular siphon. I also use a bottling bucket with a spigot whenever bottling, I would never want to try bottling with a siphon, for the reasons you seem to have discovered.

I usually keg, but on occasion I bottle with a bucket and an autosiphon... The siphon usually sits right on the edge/corner of the bottom of the bucket and gets almost everything out of it...

Never had any problem with losing the siphon..

My vote is for getting an autosiphon. I can't imagine going back to a normal racking cane now...

There are various ways/methods to achieve the same goal.
If this new way is causing you concern or stress go with the way you are comfortable with...RDWHAHB.

Until you read about some new method and think "why didn't I think of that, it's much better/easier/cleaner/more effiecient.....", stick with what works for you.

there is nothing about siphoning that 'exposes you to contamination'. its a lot easier to sanitize siphoning equipment than the inside of that spigot you used to drain from since it was already installed and couldn't be sanitized immediately before use. those spigots are perfect breeding places for bacteria.

+1 for AutoSiphon. It rocks on toast!

Also, get another bucket with a spigot for bottling only, but certainly don't ferment in it. I would never trust that rubber gasket seal for anything more than a few minutes with my brew. My san bucket has a spigot and it leaks like a sieve all the damn time.

I would never try and bottle with a siphon. As you found, it would be a major PITA.

As for the fermenter, filling the bottling bucket from a siphon leaves a whole lot of crap behind in the fermenter that you don't want in your beer. But, if you are happy with the results, by all means install a spigot on your fermenter.

If you use a bottle filler on the end of that siphon hose, it should be just as easy as the spigot method.

I even bottle a few straight out of the siphon tube and regulate the flow by lifting or lowering the bottle in relation to the carboy's wort level. It takes practice, but it works. I only do this to fill a six pack or so worth of bottles while I'm kegging a 6 gallon batch.

Thanks for all the replies. This is a great forum with lots of helpful people.

I can't seem to find the kind of plastic fermenter I used in Australia. A thread for the spigot is built into the fermenter so it was never going to fall out and I've never had one leak. The spigot screws out for easy cleaning. The inside of the spigot had a sediment reducer on it so the only sediment that came out was the yeast that had settled in the spigot. It's hard to describe and I can't find a picture of it but imagine a tube on the inside of the spigot with the end closed off. A slot is cut in the top of the tube so no sediment is stirred up from the bottom. If anyone knows where I can get one of these in Nth America please let me know.

It sounds like installing a spigot on my pail is asking for a disaster or at least leaks to happen. I'm using my pail as my fermenter and my bottling bucket at the moment and I don't want to ruin it.

I think half my problem with siphoning is the clamp that came with the racking cane doesn't hold the racking cane firmly on the pail and it moves around and falls off. I'll try a spring clamp from the local hardware store. I'm using a bottle filler on the end of the tube. My short attention span means I still overflow a few bottles anyway

Thanks for the info on the autosiphon, I've not seen one of those before. I also found this idea too which i'll give a try as I've read the autosiphon won't get into the corner of a carboy and this thing is dirt cheap https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=25774.

I miss my corny kegs (sniff). A mate of mine is putting them to good use back home though. I forgot just how much of a hassle bottling is.

Thanks FlyGuy, I made one of your siphons and it works well. I think the potential for contamination is very small.