death by siphon, please help!

ok so im in the process of siphoning to secondary for the first time. I accidentally let the siphon tip above the liquid lvl and it stopped, now i cant get it going again. i'd say that theres about 2-2.5 inches of liquid above the 2 or so inches of trub in my 6.5 gallon carboy. my 5 gal better bottle is less than 2/3 full (remaining beer is on kitchen floor.) is there some trick here or should I just call it a day and dump the rest?

I'm not altogether sure that I understand your predicament... But if just getting the siphon going is your problem, you can always just suck on the end of it. Not super clean, but it's better than nothing. If you do, it might be a good idea to gargle with some high proof spirits or mouthwash before hand.

And then get yourself an autosiphon for your next batch (or search Flyguy's posts here for his el-cheapo auto siphon).

For my first post, I may as well try to be helpful, right?

I had a similar problem when draining an aquarium that I didn't want to move or disturb once. The trick is to get the siphon tube full of liquid, then cap one end so no air can get in to displace the liquid, then position it to start and let the liquid begin pulling the beer out of the higher container.

Since this is beer and not stinky fish-water, I would suggest using sanitizer solution or sterilized water that you wouldn't mind getting a little bit into your beer.

Fill the siphon tube by submerging it in the water. Put your sanitized thumb over the lower end and remove from the water - the tube should remain full. Then carefully position the upper end of the siphon underneath the level of the beer in the primary, keeping your thumb over over the lower end so the tube can't drain.

Place a cup on the floor and put the low end of the siphon near it. Take your thumb off of the low end and let the water/sanitizer siphon into the cup. Stop it with your thumb once the beer gets to the bottom end. Then move the bottom end of the siphon into your secondary and let it go. It should start pulling beer.

Sound good? I may do this myself since I managed to snap the end off of my autosiphon on my second batch!

hey thanks! I got it going using that method, it was pretty easy actually. I still managed to lose about a gallon somewhere along the way, assuming 5 gallons is a 5 gal better bottle filled to the top, but its my first batch and im happy its safe in secondary! gotta go though, first mini mash is coming along right now

I still do this old-school cheap method of siphoning by using gravity, but it works fine. I always place a chair on my kitchen table and then the carboy on the chair, then siphon into the bucket. I have a towel or two underneath to catch any dribbles, which happens more when I follow up with the bottling. Anyway, good that you didn't dump the rest!

I guess I could just get an autosiphon eventually. Do they break easily or something?

An oldie but a goodie...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=2910

desiderata said:

I guess I could just get an autosiphon eventually. Do they break easily or something?

Click to expand...

Well, I wouldn't say mine broke easily. I was just a little too determined to get that tubing off the end without going through the trouble of soaking it in some hot water to soften it up first.

I still have an inch or two of pipe below the bend in the autosiphon, so I am pretty sure I can still get some tubing on there and make it work. I will chalk it up to yet another lesson on the importance of patience. I wish I would learn that lesson once and for all - it gets expensive!

Is the fermtec autosiphon a decent autosiphon? I am new and looking to get one to make the whole siphoning process easier. I figure it is worth the $11.25 to make my life easier.

olllllo said:

An oldie but a goodie...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=2910

Click to expand...

Supposedly those things work great... if you're a carboy user which I'm not. I did jerry-rig a similar setup to siphon my mead out of a 1-gal jub. Basically I drilled a second hole in my stopper (that was a *****, BTW) and ran tubing so I could get it going. Worked okay and I'm gonna ask my supplier if I can get a double-drilled stopper in the future.

Focus