Siphoning Options?

Had to watch helplessly today as my auto-siphon picked up about equal parts freshly fermented beer.... and equal parts air bubbles.. I'm hoping the beer turns out okay, it went straight into the keg and I purged the keg several times, but I'm not holding my breath at this point.

This is about the 3rd autosiphon i've been through in 8 or so 5-gallon brew sessions, which is not what i'd call acceptable durability. The "inner tube" seal always gives out and sucks air into the siphon. At this point I'm like 100% done siphoning.

I thought about getting a pump, which would be awesome for moving hot wort through my plate chiller into the fermenter, but since they typically don't self-prime, would be useless for getting beer out of the fermenter.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Do you store your auto siphon assembled? If you do it can ruin the gasket. Also wet it before assembly.

bigdaddybrew said:

Do you store your auto siphon assembled? If you do it can ruin the gasket. Also wet it before assembly.

Click to expand...

I have never thought to store mine disassembled. (though I've not had issued with the seal breaking either... yet)

Oops thought you were the OP.

Wallachia said:

Had to watch helplessly today as my auto-siphon picked up about equal parts freshly fermented beer.... and equal parts air bubbles.. I'm hoping the beer turns out okay, it went straight into the keg and I purged the keg several times, but I'm not holding my breath at this point.

This is about the 3rd autosiphon i've been through in 8 or so 5-gallon brew sessions, which is not what i'd call acceptable durability. The "inner tube" seal always gives out and sucks air into the siphon. At this point I'm like 100% done siphoning.

I thought about getting a pump, which would be awesome for moving hot wort through my plate chiller into the fermenter, but since they typically don't self-prime, would be useless for getting beer out of the fermenter.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Click to expand...

to help minimize oxygen contact, you could go to co2 pressure transfers.

basically you need to have a racking cane through your fermenter lid, connected to a hose, which is then connected to a liquid-out disconnect then connected to your co2 purged keg. you will also need a way to hook your co2 up to your fermentor lid, so that you can apply a very low PSI of co2 into your fermentor (like 1 psi -- just enough to push the beer out). open the pressure relief valve on your keg and the beer should flow from your fermenter into your keg without ever touching oxygen.

I've not personally done this using buckets, but it works great with other fermentor types (converted sankey, conical, etc..) you can find several threads about this method.. I can't imagine why this wouldn't work with a bucket, as long as your lid seals well.

it would basically come down to how you get your racking cane into the bucket and how you attach the co2. I'm imagining a fermenter lid with two grommeted holes. when you initially pitch/start fermentation, both holes have an airlock (or one airlock and one plug). when you're ready to transfer, you insert a (sanitized) racking cane through one hole and a (sanitized) co2 line into the other. this might introduce a minimal amount of oxygen while you are swapping airlock for co2/racking cane but should be minimal and if you're willing to dedicate some equipment you could just add the racking cane/co2 line when you start fermentation.

the co2 hookup could be as easy as a short (2 inches would be fine) piece of SS tubing (same size as your airlock grommet/hole) with an MFL to compression fitting. that way you can hook your gas line to it just like you would with a standard gas disconnect.. or you could just force your gas-line directly over the tube..