No fancy siphoning here!

[snail]

If you're using a carboy, setting up a carboy cap and racking cane like this:

You can just blow into the other port on the cap to create pressure that will start the siphon.

 

[spearko520]

a safer alternative to sucking: fill your siphon hose completely with clean (ideally boiled) water, you may need 3 hands to pour it in while holding up the ends, then the siphon will start as soon as you put one end in the carboy and lower the other. start the siphon into a glass held over your bucket until the beer has replaced all of the water, then get the beer into the bucket(/kettle)

that's the ticket, man- you can even fill it w star san. i siphon clean, but i make out with the bottles, so they are sufficiently slobbered

 

[spearko520]

If you're using a carboy, setting up a carboy cap and racking cane like this:

You can just blow into the other port on the cap to create pressure that will start the siphon.

you could do this - put a balloon on your cap when you are fermenting, capture a balloon worth of co2, and then when it's time to bottle reattach the balloon and squeeze the gas in, instead of blowing... that's what all the college kids around here do....