Siphoning Blues...does it happen to you?

Racking is definately the most frustrating part of the brewing process for me. Today, racking into my bottling bucket, my siphon crapped out with about a gallon of fermented wort and a bunch of trub left at the bottom of the carboy.

I use one of those sterile siphon starters they sell on morebeer.com. I tried and tried until my face was red to blow that last gallon out, but no luck.

So what did I do? I didn't want to lose a gallon of beer. I figured I would dump the last gallon into the bottling bucket keeping as much trub in the carboy as possible...let it settle for an hour or so and bottle. So I did, and it splished and spalshed and foamed. While I'm letting it settle, I flip open my "How to Brew" and learn about the dangers of adding oxygen to fermented wort. Apparently, it gives the beer a stale tase.

Usually, I'm like a kid in a candy store on bottling day. Today I'm a little bummed thinking about bitter beer face. Am I worried about nothing? Any words of encouragement?

I'm not familiar with a sterile syphon starter but is it possible it's not allowing air into the carboy to replace the beer being syphoned off? This would cause the syphon to quit when the negative pressure in the carboy is strong enough to counteract the weight of the falling beer in the hose.

The only other thing I can think of is the racking cane got plugged with trub, do you hold it up away from the trub or drop it right down to the bottom?

I just suck on the end, put my thumb over it and start the pour! hands are clean of course and I don't blow back the wort up the pipe.
This is not the cleanest way in the world to do it but I have had no infections.

I used to hate siphoning until I got my Auto Siphon. It has improved my home brewing experience immensely.

http://www.williamsbrewing.com/EASY-SIPHON_P818C55.cfm

I agree, autosiphon is the only way to go, if all else fails, you can just pump it out

RichBrewer said:

I used to hate siphoning until I got my Auto Siphon. It has improved my home brewing experience immensely.

Click to expand...

Damn! I just went to the LHBS (one hour away), and I didn't even think of getting one of those!

I've been using the old school method of filling the siphoning tube with sanitized water and letting gravity do the trick. This requires some work and can be messy as well, but it's gotten the job done for me. But for the price of the autosiphon, I'm going to give it a try.

I have heard that the autosiphon they sell at morebeer isn't the real thing, and therefore sucks in the siphon dept (err, maybe it doesn't suck, and that's the problem). Replace it with the real thing and be happy.

Beware the autosiphon naysayers. I'll put it bluntly. Anyone that knocks it either too cheap to drop the $9 or doesn't know how to use it properly. There are pros and cons to every siphoning method, but I suspect the autosiphon is the one with a lot of pros and very few cons.

Let's compare sanitizing first.

I sanitize the A/S by putting it in my better bottle filled with a gallon of one step solution. I shake it up to sanitize the outside. I pump it to sanitize the inside (as well as the attached tubing). I just put the tubing inside the carboy as well so that I'm just circulating sanitizer back into the carboy.

So, if you use a plain racking cane and hose, how to you sanitize it? You need a vessel that will allow at least half of the cane to be submerged. Then you have to hold your tubing under to make sure it's filled.

Those that use the old fill the hose with water trick always say it's easy. Well, you still have to sanitize the stuff so see above. Then you have to be confident your water is clean (suppose you could use sanitizer). Make sure you don't hold your dirty finger over the end (suppose you can use a hose pinching clamp or do it manually). Make sure you don't lift the tubing up and get the water in your beer. Anyway, it's not THAT easy.

By the way, the autosiphon also doubles as a theif to collect SG samples.

I'll also sing the praises of the autosiphon. I was too cheap to get one for the longest time, but I'm glad I finally bit the bullet. The manual siphoning process is a PITA when compared to the A/S, and the best part is that when you're trying to squeeze that last little bit of beer out of a bunch of dryhop-gunk, you just pump it a few times to unclog it. Worth every penny.

I've worked in a lab for years, so siphoning almost comes natural to me. One thing that works the best is a gravity method. Put the primary well above to what your siphoning to. Dip the hose and rack cane to get them full of brew and then hold it in place with your thumb. Position where you want the brew to go and then release with your thumb. I usually tilt the bucket over a little so I won't suck up too much trub.

How do you get your racking cane full of brew? I'm trying to picture it but I can't because the cane is usually much taller than whatever vessel you're siphoning out of. Do you actually drape all of your hose into the primary and then reach your hand in to cover the hose end with your thumb? Too unsanitary.


All siphoning uses gravity, it's more a debate about how to best get the siphon started.

Here's a good question. How many of you bought an autosiphon, used it a couple times and THEN decided you liked your other method better?

I've been sold on my A/S for years. No reason to give it up...

As for racking...who was that? Pat? Anyway, I put a shim under my fermenter several hours prior to racking.

The yeast falls down lower into the container and your racking tube/syphon can hit bottom without worrying about racking cloudy beer.