My auto siphon broke in December after my third batch, and I was kind of discouraged and haven’t brewed since.
I have recently been thinking about starting back, but I will not buy another auto siphon. Even when it was working, it never worked well.
I have been thinking about it a little and other than it being hard to clean, a handheld siphon pump should work well. I use one to siphon the gas from my mower in the winter.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
I’ve used a SS racking cane for years. Pretty much indestructible.
I like the idea of that and using a carboy cap, but (and I suppose I should have mentioned this in my first post) I am brewing with two one gallon jugs and according to the store page, the cap will not fit the one gallon jug.
I have to wonder if your auto siphon had some defect. Mine works great. Just keep the second vessel at a lower level, pump once, and it does the rest. I would not be afraid to buy another.
I was thinking the same. I have done maybe 30-35 batches so far with mine, maybe 10 times I have done secondary and then each time into bottling bucket so maybe close to 50 times. no issues yet.
I wouldn’t include complications that might be hard to sanitize. You just need to start a siphon and then let gravity do the work. I use a racking cane, with this trick I picked up a trick from my LHBS or here on the posts: Use the racking cane with the flexible hose, and on the “lower” end use one of the hose clamps and a short piece of hard tubing. (For me this is the tube from an extra bottling wand. I use a different bottling wand to actually do the bottling.) Suck slowly on the bottling wand end to get the siphon hose filled (you can raise the hose so that you don’t get a full siphon going), then close the hose clamp to trap the beer inside. Pull off the mouth-tube, lower the hose into your bottling bucket and open the clamp. You should have a solid siphon going.
I used to use the carboy cap method (racking cane in one port, blow into the other to get the siphon started) and it worked OK a lot of the time but getting a tight seal was hard. I also tried filling the siphon hose with sanitized water and using that to jumpstart the siphon, and it worked but required some liquid juggling.
But for one-gallon batches, I almost have to wonder if you’re better off just pouring into the bottling bucket and trying to keep the splashing to a minimum and make one continuous pour so you don’t disturb too much of the trub at the bottom.
Thanks for the reply everyone! I assumed it was defective after watching the video and seeing how easy it was for them. The very first time I used it, I had to pump it five or so times to get it going. I emailed NB last night and they are sending me a new one totally free. I had no idea it had a one year warranty. I don’t care to give it another try if its free lol.
The autosiphon is one tool I consider absolutely invaluable to brewing.
+1 to auto-siphon, and they make short, med., and long ones. “Don’t leave home without it!”
I’m on batch #120 or so, and on my second autosiphon. I still have the old one, and found that it started working again. I think the seal inside had kind of dried out. StarSan is a good lubricant and helps things work smoothly. Can’t beat it, if you ask me.
All endorsements aside, I did receive one Autosiphon that was defective when I got it. And, I’ve broken a few. I’m probably on my 5th autosiphon, after 220 batches.
Why not just use a bung with two holes drilled for the same effect? Just hit up a chemistry supply site and you’ll find what you need.
