Have you ever had an absolutely horrible day?

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Auspice

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I decided the perfect way to forget about a stressful day at work would be to rack my Irish Red into secondary. Little did I know at the time it would be an even worse experience than dealing with the public for 9 hours.

My auto siphon(which was kept with both pieces separate) would absolutely NOT keep a solid seal the entire time. I ended up stopping my auto siphon and switching to the old fashioned one twice because I was getting frustrated that it kept oxygenating my beer. After switching to the regular siphon, it started pulling a bunch of the yeast layer off the bottom with it though the cheesecloth on the end. After half a gallon siphoned it stopped dead in it's tracks and would not start up again for anything. I ended up getting the last of my brew out with the auto siphon and cut my losses.

Now the kitchen's a mess, I yelled at SWIMBO, and I haven't even had a chance to eat dinner! Anyone else have any heinous experiences out of something that should have been simple?

P.S. I'm about to throw away this auto siphon. Every time I've used it it can't keep a good seal. I've tried soaking the seal in hot water to loosen it up and I even filled the tube with water which stopped the air from getting in the beer for a short time, until the water ran out that is. What the hell am I doing wrong?

EDIT: Good God, I can't even type "absolutely". I need a beer. . .
 
Do you have one of those little racking cane clips? I have one that came with an equipment kit I ordered a year or two ago, and it really helps. I just stick the clip on the fermenter, then snap the racking cane into it so that it's about halfway down the fermenter when I rack, and start the siphon. Then I can slide the racking down as the level goes down to maintain the siphon while avoiding the yeast sediment on the bottom.
 
I decided the perfect way to forget about a stressful day at work would be to rack my Irish Red into secondary. Little did I know at the time it would be an even worse experience than dealing with the public for 9 hours.

My auto siphon(which was kept with both pieces separate) would absolutely NOT keep a solid seal the entire time. I ended up stopping my auto siphon and switching to the old fashioned one twice because I was getting frustrated that it kept oxygenating my beer. After switching to the regular siphon, it started pulling a bunch of the yeast layer off the bottom with it though the cheesecloth on the end. After half a gallon siphoned it stopped dead in it's tracks and would not start up again for anything. I ended up getting the last of my brew out with the auto siphon and cut my losses.

Now the kitchen's a mess, I yelled at SWIMBO, and I haven't even had a chance to eat dinner! Anyone else have any heinous experiences out of something that should have been simple?

P.S. I'm about to throw away this auto siphon. Every time I've used it it can't keep a good seal. I've tried soaking the seal in hot water to loosen it up and I even filled the tube with water which stopped the air from getting in the beer for a short time, until the water ran out that is. What the hell am I doing wrong?

EDIT: Good God, I can't even type "absolutely". I need a beer. . .


One possibility is that the end of the auto-siphon is getting clogged up or the valve is getting stuck in a closed, or nearly closed position, causing a lot of suction around the seal (the siphon will try to pull liquid from wherever it can). Of course, if you had a good seal, then I think the siphon would just stop, but maybe the clogging or jammed valve is making the leaky seal into a major problem. Just a WAG. :)
If you are determined to throw away that siphon, and have nothing to lose, here's a wild-ass idea that I just came up with that, off the top of my head, seems like it might work. Drill a small hole in the outer tube just above the top of the plunger when it is all the way to the bottom end. The hole should be small enough that the fluid which will squirt out when you pump the siphon won't prevent starting a siphon, but large enough that it can supply more flow than the leak around the seal. You don't want to drill it very far up the tube, because it will break the siphon sooner, but maybe worth trying if you need to use it before you can get a new one (or if this works, maybe you can get by without a new one.

Edit: After actually looking at my auto-siphon, I see that the plunger stops about an inch above the valve in the bottom, so if you drill a hole above the plunger seal, the siphon will break too early and leave too much liquid behind. Never mind.
 
Ahh…yet another story of an auto siphon not working, how they seem to be numerous. I don’t understand the burden of starting a regular old siphon by sucking on the hose. A little swish of cheap vodka, a quick suck and there you have it, no hassle and no yelling at SWMBO just beer being siphoned.
 
Murphy's Law and s*** happens. We've all had those days.

I had to replace the 3/8" hose with 5/16" to keep my auto siphon from "cavitating". It works now. But I still take the lazy way out and use a ported Better Bottle to transfer for bottling.

Take SWMBO out for a nice dinner and get a good night's sleep. Works wonders.
 
Are you tying cheesecloth to the bottom of the auto siphon? I've tried this on a couple of batches and I don't recommend it. At first I thought it would be a great idea to help keep junk out of my beer. I've found that it's not really necessary and can actually make things worse. Two problems I've noticed. First, the cheesecloth starts to clog up when I get to the bottom. This means I either have to restart the siphon which stirs up all the yeast or I end up losing a lot of beer. The second problem is that the cheesecloth acts like a wick a starts sucking in air as soon as part of the cloth gets above the surface. Also, as you found yeast can flow right though the cheese cloth. I've found that if I want to get my beer or wine really clear, it's better to rack it an extra time. I usually rack my beer twice (once from primary to secondary, and from secondary to bottling bucket. With wine I'll rack 3-4 times. The nice thing about extra racking is that you can try to get everything the first time, since you know your going to do it again, instead of leaving a couple of bottles of beer in the bottom of the fermentor and still having sediment in the secondary.

Another trick I've found is don't try to hold the auto siphon off the bottom. I start the siphon about 1/2 up the fermentor, then I slowly bring it down to the bottom of the fermentor. I do this right away, I don't try to hold the siphon off the bottom of the fermentor. I've found that when I try to hold it off the bottom it's hard to hold it steady, and I keep bumping the yeast cake. It's easier to hold is steady when it's pressed firmly on the bottom of the fermentor, I usually get a bit more sediment in the beginning of the rack, but I get less sediment over all.
 
+1 to making it up to SWMBO for yelling at her...

Sorry your autosiphon is pissing you off... Mine has been the greatest brew gadget.
 
I started a thread last week about how much I hate the auto siphon. I don't want to start an epic Mac vs. PC war about auto siphons, but you're not the only one who doesn't like them.
 
Try a little keg lube or other food-grade lubricant around the gasket next time - it might help create the seal you're missing. Just a guess...
 
Well, I just hope making up with your SWMBO goes better than your work day and racking. Pay attention to what is important and believe me your relation ships beat out a problematic racking and idiots at work. :)
 
If no one cares when an autosiphon lands in a dumpster, does it still make a noise?

Do something nice for SWMBO, the rest of it is small stuff not worth getting worried about.
 
I'd try what Trencher suggests with the food grade lube on the autosiphon gasket.

Auspice, if it makes you feel better I had one of those days recently. On a bottling day I could only find one of the rubber washers for the bottling spigot. So I threaded it together and tested it with 5 gallons of water. It held, so I siphoned my beer into the bottling bucket. But when I was pushing on the spigot while attaching my bottling wand the seal started leaking beer, slowly at first then it started pouring out. So I had to to dump my beer back into the fermenter and drive out to the lhbs for a damn $0.45 washer. I get back and resumed siphoning back into the bottling bucket. But I used a can of enchilada sauce to tilt up the bottom of my fermenter which was a really stupid idea; somehow when I wasn't looking the can rolled out from under the fermenter, the fermenter fell on the floor, the can of enchilada sauce landed in the bottling bucket, about a gallon of beer was splashed all over the kitchen, and the cane inside of the autosiphon was broken just below the curve.

SWMBO was there, so I said to her, "this is supposed to be fun, why am I having such bad luck today?" (that's close to what I said, I left out a few instances of a word that rhymes with "trucking"). SWMBO, bless her heart, says "I'm going to the store to pick up some beers for us." She made herself scarce so I could curse some more and get things cleaned up. I scrubbed up to my elbow with StarSan and stuck my arm into the bottling bucket to retrieve the can. I had the floor and cabinets clean and was finally bottling by the time she returned with some beers. I bottled that batch, and then another without the autosiphon. (Hopefully the beer that had the can of enchilada sauce and my grubby arm in it will turn out tasty and I'll post the story to the "worst mistakes you made and still came out with tasty beer" thread.)

I'm not sharing that story to have a bad day pity party, but because there are some valuable lessons in there:

1) It's supposed to be fun. So make sure you remember that even when everything goes wrong it's still better than going to work, or mowing the lawn, or spending time with the in-laws.
2) The autosiphon is your friend. If you can't get yours working right, find a new friend who's a little more reliable.
3) A happy SWMBO is your best asset.
 
Dry hop with 2 more ounces to make that Irish Red a nice, bitter RRRRRRRAAAAGGE IPA.

I was initially going to dry hop it actually but I didn't have any leftover since I messed up on whole to pellet conversion. I just racked it into secondary 4 days ago; would it be too late to add some pellets for some extra bitterness? Was thinking 1/2 an oz for a bit of an extra bite!

As for cheesecloth, I've used the autosiphon with and without it and both times it still sucks. :/

I'll be hitting up the LHBS tomorrow so I'll snag some keg lube and some ingredients for my next couple of brews!
 
having-a-bad-day.jpg


Well, you could be that guy. There's your silver lining.
 
Dear God run for your life if you yelled at SWMBO. Just kidding, man. Sorry to hear that things went crappy. I racked my scottish ale last weekend expecting about 1.014 and it was 1.006. Not as crappy as your story.........but still.
 
Think about drinking a semi warm Budweiser, now that is really a bad day. Just got to stop, breath and remember there are a lot worse things that could be happening. You could live in a country that doesn't allow beer.
 
Ahh…yet another story of an auto siphon not working, how they seem to be numerous. I don’t understand the burden of starting a regular old siphon by sucking on the hose. A little swish of cheap vodka, a quick suck and there you have it, no hassle and no yelling at SWMBO just beer being siphoned.

This is me, without the vodka. If I was doing vodka shots, I'd never get the bottling done. I thought about getting an auto siphon and decided not to with all the negatives. That's my OPINION. Anyway, I use the old fashioned tube with a clamp. Insert tube, let it hang, suck beer only to the level of the clamp, about 12-15 inches from outlet end of tube. Clamp it off, and swish the end in a bucket of sanitizer, making sure to get sanitizer into the end of the tube. Shake it out to drain sanitizer back into the bucket. Insert now sanitized end of tube into carboy or bottle and as long as the level of the beer at the clamp is below the level of the source beer, a siphon will start. I did this while my wine making friend was over and he was flabbergasted it only took about 3 seconds to set up a siphon.
 
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