Siphoning sucks?

[Ninoid]

I bought a new autosiphon and did not work properly. He could not make enough pressure to pull beer (leak). From it I made a tube holder and pulled my beer with my mouth. It works without problems over 30 batches.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

I absolutely despise the pump auto-siphon. Once I ditched it and used CO2 to push the beer out of the carboy my life got infinitely better

 

[JimRausch]

After going through three plastic autosiphons over the past 7 1/2 years, I finally bit the bullet and bought a stainless steel one from Brewsssential at Homebrewcon. This baby is great and I'm sure will be the last autosiphon I'll ever need to buy. The plastic ones would break and leak, or I'd lose essential parts, or I'd get a nagging suspicion of contamination despite rigorous cleaning and sanitizing. The SS ones are pricey, but at least for me, it's worth it.

 

[El Nino]

tip the carboy when it's getting low, and I usually don't fear getting in too much trub, i put a rubber band around a mesh cloth at the bottom so it doesn't clog my siphon.

but with that said, I don't like siphoning and might get a SS brew bucket. I just love the convenience of opening the spigot not having to clean / sanitize and fiddle with the auto siphon. Realized how great having a spigot was after upgrading my brew kettle, and was like damn this is what I've been missing huh

I did think about fermenting in my bottling bucket, so I can skip the siphoning step from my carboys to bucket, but I just have a fear about fermenting in a plastic vessel.

 

[kh54s10]

I still don't trust plastic spigots. 1) to not get broken off by accident 2) to not have crud grow inside during fermentation 3) to possibly leak. They are after all $4 pieces of plastic. Stainless steel on a quality fermenter maybe.

 

[El Nino]

I still don't trust plastic spigots. 1) to not get broken off by accident 2) to not have crud grow inside during fermentation 3) to possibly leak. They are after all $4 pieces of plastic. Stainless steel on a quality fermenter maybe.

Yeah true. and the stainless buckets are like $200. I'm probably never giving up my glass haha.

 

[kh54s10]

Yeah true. and the stainless buckets are like $200. I'm probably never giving up my glass haha.

Stainless Steel is too expensive and glass is too dangerous..... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/broken-glass-carboy-horror-stories-compendium.376523/

 

[MaxStout]

I was never a fan of autosiphons. I called them "auto-aerators," as they would invariably draw air bubbles into the line.

I bought one of these for carboys. Blow into the inlet, the filter keeps out germs.

Now I have Brew Buckets, so no more siphoning. But If you're using carboys, the "Sterile Siphon Starter" may do the trick.

 

[El Nino]

Stainless Steel is too expensive and glass is too dangerous..... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/broken-glass-carboy-horror-stories-compendium.376523/

That's why i stuck with my 3g carboys. I split the batch between two when making a 5 gallon batch. full 3 gallon carboys are light enough to where I don't feel uneasy carrying them around. I couldn't say the same about lifting a full 6g carboy though.

 

[snarf7]

I use a transfer pump (best piece of extra equipment I've bought) so I can't comment on the auto-siphoning but a couple tricks I've learned that help minimize trub are:

1. I put a wedge of wood (almost like a big doorstop) under the fermenter so that the yeast will collect mostly on one side
2. When its time to transfer I keep it tilted the same way so I can get my racking cane down almost to the bottom and still not pick up any crap.
3. Sometimes due to space limitations I need to move the fermenter before transferring...in those cases I very gingerly move it to the desired location, set it up on the same tilt and then let it sit for 20-30 mins so anything I stirred up will fall back out

 

[jack13]

I was never a fan of autosiphons. I called them "auto-aerators," as they would invariably draw air bubbles into the line.

I bought one of these for carboys. Blow into the inlet, the filter keeps out germs.

Now I have Brew Buckets, so no more siphoning. But If you're using carboys, the "Sterile Siphon Starter" may do the trick.

I just couldn't get that thing to work. Luckily I discovered that fact during a dry run with water (reverse pun?). Not much headspace, as good of a seal as I could ever get. Turned myself blue. Nada.

 

[bkboiler]

Best tips I implemented with my auto siphon:
1. to take it apart before storage
2. Prior to use, dump around 1 oz of sanitizer into the upper part just before siphoning

The sanitizer helps enhance the seal similarly to how keg lube works... I haven't had any air leaks since I started doing this...

Also something I discovered is it helps to have a plastic clamp on the hose to slow down the flow when nearing the last half gallon or so. That way very little trub gets picked up.

 

[kh54s10]

My autosiphon is one of my best pieces of equipment. I get no more air introduction than you would with that blow in contraption. Just the air that is already in the tubing and cane. The same. One pump starts the siphon at least 90% of the time. I would not switch to any other siphon method, but may at some point switch to pressure transfers.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

I just couldn't get that thing to work. Luckily I discovered that fact during a dry run with water (reverse pun?). Not much headspace, as good of a seal as I could ever get. Turned myself blue. Nada.

Do you keg? If so you can easily borrow your CO2 tank for a couple minutes and hook it up to that thing and use CO2 to push it over.

 

[jack13]

Do you keg? If so you can easily borrow your CO2 tank for a couple minutes and hook it up to that thing and use CO2 to push it over.

I didn't keg at the time I had tried that siphon but do now. I've since worked out another, seemingly permanent solution. But I'll remember this, thanks!

 

[jturman35]

This and never look back!

 

[jack13]

This and never look back!

View attachment 636906

Looks like you could carb in your FV--ever serve right from it?

 

[snarf7]

I have 2 ports at the top of my fermenter. What I've been trying lately is during fermentation I will plug one of them and leave a racking cane all ready to go in the other...the tubing connected to it has it's open end in a bottle of starsan + water to vent the excess CO2. When I'm ready to rack to the keg, I purge the keg of all O2, leaving a small volume of CO2 in it. Then I hook up the out side on my transfer pump to the beer-out on the keg coupler (with the check valve removed) and hook the in side of the pump to the racking cane. Then I use the second port on top of the fermenter by hooking it up to my CO2. Now I just need to turn the pump on, away it goes and if it starts to stall out due the pressure in the keg exceeding what the pump can push I just turn up the CO2 a bit (we're talking 1-2 PSI, very minimal) and/or slightly vent the keg because as it fills there is less room for the gas so you can just pull the check valve a little and free up some headspace. Seems to work pretty well for me but I'm still tinkering with it.

 

[jturman35]

Looks like you could carb in your FV--ever serve right from it?

Na, I cold crash and move on to the next batch.