Problems.

I've just transferred my porter from primary to secondary. It's the first time I've used a glass carboy for primary and I have a few problems/niggles. Any help would be appreciated.

Firstly the bubble air lock must be slightly thicker than my racking cane. When I removed the cap and pulled the lock on fitting the racking cane it was not an air tight fit so I had to push the plastic tubing down against the cap to get a seal. I had to apply a lot of pressure on the other tube to get a start on the siphoning.

Secondly when the transfer started I noticed a lot of bubbles in the siphon tube,
. I'm just worried about oxidisation.

Any suggestions please as to how to rectify these problems?

orfy said:

Firstly the bubble air lock must be slightly thicker than my racking cane. When I removed the cap and pulled the lock on fitting the racking cane it was not an air tight fit so I had to push the plastic tubing down against the cap to get a seal. I had to apply a lot of pressure on the other tube to get a start on the siphoning.

Click to expand...

Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty confused by this paragraph. I am having touble visualizing your set-up here.

orfy said:

Secondly when the transfer started I noticed a lot of bubbles in the siphon tube. I'm just worried about oxidisation.

Click to expand...

Were these bubbles that stayed present through the whole transfer, or just some bubbles at the beginning that worked them selves out? If the latter is true, I don't think you need to worry about it. I always have some burps of air go through the line when I start my siphons, and I've never noticed any problems.

-walker

I'll go take a picture for you.

The bubbles were tiny bubbles almost like CO2 the were sticking to the side of the tube and therough out the wort. It wasn't like the normal large air bubbles at the start of a siphon.

orfy said:

The bubbles were tiny bubbles almost like CO2 the were sticking to the side of the tube and therough out the wort. It wasn't like the normal large air bubbles at the start of a siphon.

Click to expand...

I had this happen to me over the weekend when I was bottling. For me, the problem turned out to be that my racking cane wasn't making a tight seal with the siphon hose. a *little* bit of air was sneaking in and causing tons of little bubbles in the line. I switched to a different cane (same hose) and had no further problems.

-walker

Ok, now I get you, Orfy.

And, I think you might have had the same trouble that I was describing in my last post. ie; the hose is not making a tight seal with the cane. That will cause you problems with oth (a) getting the siphon started and (b) allowing air to sneak in and make bubbles.

I think it might be a case of your hoses getting stretched out or something. I had to buy new hoses a month or so ago because I couldn't get a good seal between the hose and my bottling tip, and the result was a lot of beer trickling down the outside of the bottling tip and making a stick mess ofmy hands. The new hose sealed nicely and i had no leaks at all.

-walker

I'll look at that. Cheers.

I think it's the seal between the racking cane and the carboy cap.
Do to think I may need to use a hose clip?

I can see what you mean about the airlock possibly stretching out the carboy cap so that the cane didn't make a good seal. But that only explains half of the problem. (FYI: I only use my carboy caps for siphoning. I know they can be used to hold airlocks, I don't do this with them since I have so many drilled stoppers.)

a bad seal between the cane and cap would definately cause problem with starting the siphon, but would not introduce bubbles into the hose.

weird. it's almost like your cane shrunk in diameter... bad seal with the carboy cap, bad seal with the hose.

-walker

If I am understanding this...you can fix your seal problem by cutting off an inch of tubing from the end.

It's only stretched out where you stretched it out, not the length of the entire tube.

Next time you feed a tube/cane through a cap - wet both pieces first then feed it up through the bottom.

i tried this when I had my issues with the bottling tip. it didn't help. I was actually able to (easily) slide the bottling wand all the way up into the tube, and pull it back out just as easily. I have no idea what happened to that hose, but (for me) replacing the thing was the only option.

-walker

I don't have a racking cane, but I noticed the same problem with Tom's setup. Why the manufacturers can't get a good match between the cane and tubing is a real mystery. We put some tape around it, but he plans on getting a hose clamp.