Bubbles in my auto siphon

I have searched for this and can't find an answer. I recently got an auto siphon (well, it's actually called easy siphon Easy-Siphon 3/8" (5/16") - The Vintage Shop.ca ) and when I tried racking with it, I got a lot of air getting sucked.

I have found many posts about air coming in from where the tubing meets the inner cane, but mine is coming from where the inner cane meets with the outer cane. The seal isn't working.

It works fine for most of the racking process, because beer fills the outer cane and therefore it has no air to suck. But once I'm down to about a gallon left, there is no more beer in the outer cane and air gets sucked in.

Did I just a faulty product? Is there a way to make a better seal? Is there any type of lubricant that I could use to help the seal?

I would probably just get a new racking cane, they're relatively cheap. I would bother with lubricant, as you risk contamination and off flavors.

I would, except the closest lhbs is 1000 miles away. I got this when I was visiting my parents, so I was hoping there was a fix.

I would make one of flyguy's $3 auto siphons, but the hardware store didn't have any tee fittings. Maybe i'll go back to filling the siphon with water to start it.

Mine does the same thing. It's annoying because I can't get the last gallon of liquid, making the auto-siphon useless.

Try putting the tubing on the other end. That did the trick for me. Switch out ends for a better fit.

If you really can't get a new auto siphon, you can try some keg lube. But then, you'd probably get that at your HBS.

Of course, you can always transfer without the auto siphon, I did that for a long time. Just fill your tubing with sanitized water or sanitizer, hook it up to the racking cane, and let 'er rip into your carboy. Generally, it works fine.

EDIT: I just read that you used to do it this way. I would just do the regular siphon until you can get a new auto siphon. Old fashioned, good times.

I had the exact same issue as you do. After many successful uses of my auto siphon it did exactly what you described during one batch. The only difference was that this time I was trying to siphon a much hotter wort than times previous. I don't know for sure that the temperature was the cause but it seemed to be the only factor that had changed. I tried soaking the seal and also tried keg lube with no luck. I wound up throwing it away and buying a new one. My new one has been working just fine for many batches now.

+1 on a little bit of keg lube on the seal. Another thing I do is to let the siphon sit in the fermenter for 30 seconds or so before starting it to allow more beer to flow past the seal so it last through the final gallon.

Another tip is to not have the height difference be so great between the two containers. I was messing around with this one time while moving some StarSan around prior to kegging. I found that when I had a large difference in height it of course would flow faster, but would also suck more air in. I decreased the height difference and while it did flow slower - no bubbles.