Safe suck-start siphon

I asked my LHBS, whats the best way to start a siphon?

one of the answers I got was to attach a smaller hose (came with the kit), suck on that, pinch the siphon hose, then remove the smaller one. It worked great and I don't see anything wrong with this method. I couldn't find anything addressing this by searching the forums. Are there any potential problems with it?

As long as you sanitize the end of the hose that connects with the syphon hose there is no problem. I use a method like this to start the syphon through my CFC.

You can buy the T Siphon at the Depot for $5 in the plumbing section. Just buy a whole 25' of hose, it never hurts to have extra or make a large siphon.

I used to prime my hose with bottled water. I had my fingers over the ends once primed. took one finger off and placed the hose in the beer. Water can't come out b/c my finger is still over the other end. The end the finger is covering is placed in the bucket or carboy. Pretty simple and can be done with very little splashing or bacterial contamination. The only negative for me is having extra bottled water on hand.

Personally, I'd choose the first method from Fly Guy

auto-siphon for 15 dollars eh? Or the Carboy caps are another option.

I use a sanitized turkey baster for the suction.

One thing that I take into account is that the autosiphon is easier for me to sanitize. I've got a spare keg full of starsan, so I just drop the autosiphon and the attached tubing right in the top, give it a few pumps to fill it all up with sanitizer, and let it sit for a bit. No other siphoning setup can touch it for ease of sanitizing, at least in my case. If you don't keep sanitizer in a similar container it may not be quite as convenient, however you can still do the same thing in a bucket or other container and just use a spray bottle to hit all the exposed areas.

And then when actually siphoning, it's just as easy (or probably easier) than the above mentioned methods to get the siphon going.

I guess if saving $5-10 is a big concern then you might want to go with some kind of suck-start, but considering all the money I've spent in every area of my brewing equipment, I would never give up my autosiphon, I think it was worth every penny.

easy sanitary way to do this:

take siphon hose, put in bucket of sanitizer to fill hose completely. Reach in with thum to plug one end and pull full hose out of buket.

put unpluged end in transferring liquid and drop the other end below level in a different bucket than the target bucket. Let go of your thumb and the siphon will start, and when all sani is gone and beer/wort is running plug hose and put it in target vessel.

I always just filled with water, plugged one end with my sanitized thumb, stuck the other in the beer and let go. I'd collect the water in something else until the beer started to run.

Last night I tried a carboy cap for the first time. I'll never go back to the other method. This was much easier. You just suck and the beer flows. The cap doesn't come in contact with the beer.

Silviakitty said:

I use a sanitized turkey baster for the suction.

Click to expand...

+1

Kai

There are squeeze-pump start fish tank siphon starters that I've seen. You might look into one of those.

+1 on the auto-siphon. I've done the "fill the hose with water", the "sanitize the hose and suck", or "rinse your mouth out with vodka then suck". Bah! they were all a pain in the a$#, or involved way to much sucking for a macho guy like myself.

For ten bucks or less, get the auto-siphon. You will kick yourself for screwing around with all the other BS.