Big Mouth Bubbler - Siphonless - Yes or No

[Jiffster]

Going to get a PET Big Mouth 6.5g. Wasn't sure if I should get a siphonless one of not?

Doesn't seem like the spigot would be sanitary.

 

[Nummey]

Just ordered a siphonless one the other day for hopefully ease in racking to keg, taking gravity samples and 1 off bottling with carb tabs. Have read pretty good reviews about siphonless option so we'll see.
As for sanitary, you'd just need to clean thoroughly after transfer and of course sanitize...

 

[Brewbie]

I have the regular one. It works for me but I dont sample or check anything until i move to seconday which is usually 2 weeks.

 

[mrgrimm101]

I use the standard 6.5 gallon plastic version.. it does not have a valve/spigot. I love it! The ease of a bucket, yet you can still see the fermentation inside. The punted bottom is awesome, it makes it easy to transfer without getting too much trub. I got the lid with 2 ports so I can keep the airlock in and take a sample at the same time if I need to. However, I have yet to use the 2 ported lid. The only downside is that I use a turkey baster to take gravity samples, so I still have to remove the whole lid to reach the baster in and pull a sample. I could get away with not having to open the lid by getting an actual wine thief.

I don't like the idea of a valve/spigot on my fermentor. I've seen where other people have leaks and lose beer without realizing it. It's easy enough to set up my auto-siphon on bottling day.

 

[joe_four_strings]

I have a 5 gal siphon-less with it's first batch fermenting right now. Just the fact that I don't have to use a thief to pull out gravity samples makes it a good investment.

 

[mrgrimm101]

I have a 5 gal siphon-less with it's first batch fermenting right now. Just the fact that I don't have to use a thief to pull out gravity samples makes it a good investment.

Is the valve above the line of trub? That's something I've always wondered about ported vessels.

 

[hezagenius]

I'd be worried about if the spigot can remain sanitary. Do you want the spigot for taking samples or do you want it to make racking easier?

 

[joe_four_strings]

Is the valve above the line of trub? That's something I've always wondered about ported vessels.

yes it is just above the trub.

 

[kh54s10]

I have heard the question, and I too question the ability to keep the spigot sanitary while it is fermenting, especially if you draw off samples leaving some wort in the spigot. Some have tried to tie a plastic bag of Starsan on the spigot. I do not trust the little plastic spigots. Maybe a nice stainless steel or bronze ball valve.

I also like the ability to siphon all but a tiny bit off the top of the trub. If you have a spigot and the trub is deep it might be difficult to drain without stirring up the trub.

 

[CBecksOSU1]

I have it and love it. Only 2 brews so far but so far so good. My only complaint is when filling my hydrometer tube you have to take off the air lock or my starsan gets sucked in.

 

[nettekdl]

I've done a couple hundred of brews in buckets with spigots and regularly pull samples from them and have yet to have an infection. I do squirt a bit of sanitizer in it before kegging most the time but that's about it and that's still not all the time if I'm feeling lazy

 

[fimpster]

I have a non ported one and I love it. I was going to pick up a ported one as soon as they were announced, but then I read that the harness made for them has the bottom strap running right across where the spigot is. You can apparently run the strap above or below the spigot, but this puts unwanted upward or downward pressure on the spigot. I'd be afraid of it eventually ripping out or cracking the plastic around the hole.

 

[jskennedy1979]

I use two 6.5 gallon Big Mouth carboys as primaries. One with the spigot and one without. I find when I have the choice between the two I use the spigot carboy more often. I keg and the ability to attach a long hose and gravity transfer makes packaging day even easier. The placement of the spigot above the trub puts less unwanted material into the keg than when I was using a siphon.

Cleaning is easy. The spigot assembly can be taken apart and cleaned/sanitized. I drop mine in some Oxy Free, scrub in the bucket and flush with hot water with the valve both opened and closed. When sanitizing the carboy on brew day, I add StarSan to the carboy and open the spigot to flush once I have thoroughly sanitized the inside.

As others have noted, before I move the carboy to my fermentation chamber, I spray the outside of the spigot with StarSan. Then, I fill a plastic sandwich bag about half way (enough for the spigot to stay submerged) with StarSan, wrap it around the spigot and wrap tightly with electrical tape. Word of caution. The Star San will evaporate out of the bag. Be prepared to add more after a few days.

 

[Jiffster]

Unfortunately, these won't fit in my fermentation chamber without some mods to the chamber. Too tall. I might do that one day and this is good info.

Thanks everyone!

 

[thejuanald]

I've shied away from plastic since I started brewing but the widemouth siphonless seems awesome. Are my worries about plastic unfounded?

 

[pretzelb]

I've shied away from plastic since I started brewing but the widemouth siphonless seems awesome. Are my worries about plastic unfounded?

I haven't had an issue with my Better Bottles. I fear broken glass and a hurt back more than plastic.

 

[thejuanald]

I haven't had an issue with my Better Bottles. I fear broken glass and a hurt back more than plastic.

Yeah I may try one to see how it is. I hate lifting the damn thing into the chest freezer

 

[EtchyLives]

I stayed away from plastic for a long time. Then I brewed my most successful beer (at the time) in plastic and started branching out. Now I only use glass for long-term aging and I've never had any off-flavors attributable to plastic, yet.

So yeah, I will call your worries about plastic unfounded. But that is just my anecdotal experience. I have no science or BJCP judging sheets to back me up.

 

[mrgrimm101]

I stayed away from plastic for a long time. Then I brewed my most successful beer (at the time) in plastic and started branching out. Now I only use glass for long-term aging and I've never had any off-flavors attributable to plastic, yet.

So yeah, I will call your worries about plastic unfounded. But that is just my anecdotal experience. I have no science or BJCP judging sheets to back me up.

Yea, most of what I've read mentions that you may get leaching or off-flavors from the plastic ONLY if you leave it in for a looooooong time. I always primary in plastic and bulk age in glass.

 

[Nummey]

So I got my siphonless Big Mouth Bubbler and brewed a hoppy pale ale on Friday (today is Wednesday). The recipe had 5 oz of hops that I just threw in the boil....
Here's a picture of the trub. You can see its above the spigot. Having only used buckets in the past, should I expect this trub layer to compact down a bit further with time? What would ya'll recommend when it comes time to rack to the keg....siphon or use the valve?

 

[mrgrimm101]

How did you transfer from kettle to carboy? Did you just dump it in, or did you try and run it through some sort of strainer? I typically siphon and run it through a mesh strainer. This serves to separate the hop sludge out and it aerates the wort (so I've read). This helps to limit the amount of settled material in the bottom of the carboy. However, I don't think it does much to strain out the coldbreak or other trub material.

Also, that photo is why I am so hesitant to ever use a carboy/bucket with a spigot.

 

[skitter]

I havn't used any of the larger fermenters but I use the Mr Beer LBK's that have a spigot on them. Even with my AG batches I get very little trub coming through the spigot and have not had an infection issue yet. Makes it a heckuva lot easier to transfer to bottling bucket.

 

[Nicknack]

Newbie here just trying to get all of this sorted out in my mind. I know this has to be a ridiculously obvious answer.

If I have a 6.5 gallon big mouth bubbler with spigot, exactly how would I get the beer from the bubbler to my bottling bucket. Obviously the beer comes out of the spigot but what do I connect to the spigot to transfer it to the bottling bucket?

 

[passedpawn]

Newbie here just trying to get all of this sorted out in my mind. I know this has to be a ridiculously obvious answer.

If I have a 6.5 gallon big mouth bubbler with spigot, exactly how would I get the beer from the bubbler to my bottling bucket. Obviously the beer comes out of the spigot but what do I connect to the spigot to transfer it to the bottling bucket?

Just get some vinyl tubing from home depot. Not sure of size, but if you take the spigot with you it'll be easy to figure out.

Regarding the spigots, I would vote no. A long time ago I bought a ported Better Bottle. Hated it. I was always worried about sanitation of the spigot, about it busting off as I was slinging the carboy around, etc. The few times I did use it to transfer the beer, for some reason it flowed VERY slow. I don't bother sampling till it's time to add dry hops or keg. So, with 6 Better Bottles, the one with the spigot was always the last to get used.

 

[popgunandy]

Just get some vinyl tubing from home depot. Not sure of size, but if you take the spigot with you it'll be easy to figure out.

Regarding the spigots, I would vote no. A long time ago I bought a ported Better Bottle. Hated it. I was always worried about sanitation of the spigot, about it busting off as I was slinging the carboy around, etc. The few times I did use it to transfer the beer, for some reason it flowed VERY slow. I don't bother sampling till it's time to add dry hops or keg. So, with 6 Better Bottles, the one with the spigot was always the last to get used.

I have a Big Mouth 6.5 with a spigot and absolutely love it - I've been brewing for almost 30 years and this is the easiest it's ever been. I should point out that I don't use secondary chambers very often and I never take samples from the spigot - I just use it to transfer to a keg.

The one downside is that the spigot is a bit high on the side - good for dry hopping or recipes with a lot of trub but it can leave a lot of beer behind. I set a phone book under the backside when I'm kegging and that takes care of it.

The spigot takes 3/8 tubing - get silicone tubing, though...way easier to use.

 

[Nicknack]

Let me make sure I have this right...

There are many here saying that having the spigot is really nice for taking samplers. Since I plan to use a chest freezer for my primary, I don't see how that would help since the big mouth bubbler would be sitting on the floor of my freezer. The only way I could take a sampler from the spigot would entail lifting it out of the freezer each time which seems like more of a pain than unscrewing the top and using a wine thief to get the sampler. Am I missing something here? I wouldn't be surprised if so.

 

[popgunandy]

Let me make sure I have this right...

There are many here saying that having the spigot is really nice for taking samplers. Since I plan to use a chest freezer for my primary, I don't see how that would help since the big mouth bubbler would be sitting on the floor of my freezer. The only way I could take a sampler from the spigot would entail lifting it out of the freezer each time which seems like more of a pain than unscrewing the top and using a wine thief to get the sampler. Am I missing something here? I wouldn't be surprised if so.

spot on. pull the stopper or unscrew the lid and insert a wine thief if you have to sample. Only use the spigot as a transfer device.

 

[PADave]

spot on. pull the stopper or unscrew the lid and insert a wine thief if you have to sample. Only use the spigot as a transfer device.

I was going to get a few of these with the spigot, but now I'm having second thoughts. Wouldn't taking a sample from the spigot suck air into the fermenter, exactly what you don't want? Seems like the extra cleaning, hoping the spigot stays clean, and risk of infection are not worth it. Pretty easy to start an auto siphon.

 

[JoeSpartaNJ]

I bought the siphonless version. It leaked from the moment I put it together. Tried and tried and couldn't get it to seal properly. Northern Brewer just refunded my money and didn't want it back.

Flash forward 2 months. I'm at my lhbs and decided to buy a spigot for a normal bottling bucket to see if it might work on the big mouth bubbler. To my amazement, it actually worked and didn't leak. Down side is I haven't had a chance to use it. Hopefully next weekend.

 

[Nicknack]

Okay, one more check to see if I got it...

Using the siphonless version with spigot - when transferring my beer, I would just need to attach a 3/8" tubing to the spigot, put the other in my bottling bucket and then turn the spigot on.

If not using a big mouth bubbler with a spigot, I would use a siphon to transfer the beer.

Okay, so here is the question... what am I missing because I don't see what is so great about not having to use the siphon when you still would need to attach a tube to the spigot?

 

[mrgrimm101]

Okay, one more check to see if I got it...

Using the siphonless version with spigot - when transferring my beer, I would just need to attach a 3/8" tubing to the spigot, put the other in my bottling bucket and then turn the spigot on.

If not using a big mouth bubbler with a spigot, I would use a siphon to transfer the beer.

Okay, so here is the question... what am I missing because I don't see what is so great about not having to use the siphon when you still would need to attach a tube to the spigot?

It's much easier to attach a tube to the spigot and turn it on for transfer. Sure, using an auto-siphon is not hard, it's just an extra step and 1 more piece of equipment to keep clean and sanitized. Plus you need a hose to hook up to the siphon anyway, so many people say "why not just hook up to the spigot?" Personally, I don't like the idea of a spigot on my fermentor. With the potential for leaks, and if you have an excess of trub/hop material, it doesn't seem practical to me.

 

[DeNovo]

I ordered one of the ported BMB recently from Northern Brewer (my first order there) and when it arrived, I was aghast at the ragged hole for the spigot. It seemed unlikely to seal properly and impossible to effectively sanitize.I contacted Northern Brewer with pictures and they said that it was distinctly less cleanly cut than normal. They did say they made the holes with a step drill bit, so it was never like a laser cut. They were good enough to send a second without asking for the return of the first, and the tech was going to check to make sure I got a good clean cut this time. It arrived today, and it's only marginally better. It has a big lip on the inside that I'll definitely have to trim off, and the hole is off-center on the flat panel under the gallon markers. (Both the attached pics are of the first Bubbler.) I've seen no mention of this issue with ragged port holes in the discussion here. Is it just lucky me??