# Racking Canes



## Pennywise (15/9/09)

Yes I searched

How the feck do get these things going? I'm about to throw this thing through a window, I've tried the fill it with water first trick, tried the dunk up and down, tried swearing at it and threatening it. Is there any other tricks people use to get these mongrels going? I'm giving it one more chance before it gets hurled over the fence, hopefully I take out some of those yappy friggin' dogs next door, that'll make me feel better.

Rant over :angry:


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## Effect (15/9/09)

This is my method that I do.

1) Fill it all with water.
2) Hold thumb over the bottom of the line h34r: 
3) quickly put the pick up in the liquid you want to transfer (be it fresh wort, beer in primary going to secondary or into the keg).
4) allow the water to flow out into a bucket or whatever, and when the beer is just about to reach the end, put the line into the keg or secondary or whatever.

Works a treat for me...


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## Jez (15/9/09)

slip a slightly larger piece of hose over the end of your racking hose and suck thru that until the flow starts then remove it?

or put a sanitary filter like craftbrewer sells in the end of the hose and suck to get it started?


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## Pennywise (15/9/09)

Phillip, Tried that about 5 times, the water goes one way and what little beer gets over the bend in the tube doesn't seem to want to bring any more with it.

Jez, will try that, hope it works for me


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## Jez (15/9/09)

here's another I just fround posted by Pint of lager back in 31 Aug 2004:

"Saw on HBD one fellow's cunning way of starting a syphon. He had a T piece inserted in line, with a bit of tubing coming off. So, one end in the wort, one end in the to be racked container, and the short bit in the mouth. Clamp the outflow tube, suck on the short bit, beer fills the syphon. Clamp off the short bit, open the clamp on the tube to the outflow, beer flows through syphon. So his saliva never touches the beer, but he can still use the wonders of the lungs to start the syphon."

I think I'll give that one a go too. 


Jez


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## warrenlw63 (15/9/09)

If you got it to rack from glass carboys I reckon canes are a WOFTAM and I feel your pain. Besides the fact they're a prick to sanitize due to their length.

I find it easier to just shove a bottling wand on the same end and push that into the carboy to give you more control over the siphon. Keep the cane for when you can't walk.

Warren -


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## Effect (15/9/09)

Homebrewer79 said:


> Phillip, Tried that about 5 times, the water goes one way and what little beer gets over the bend in the tube doesn't seem to want to bring any more with it.
> 
> Jez, will try that, hope it works for me



sounds like you don't have enough hose on the pick up...so there isn't enough water to pull up the beer and make it gravity feed through.

Another thing you can do is buy a T piece and attach it near the top of the racking cane. You attach a small amount of tubing on one end and have a little switch to close it off, with a longer piece of tubing on the other end. Idea is, you suck on the small tubing to get it started and then switch it off so no beer ends up near where your mouth was and just runs down the other tubing into wherever you want it.

Hope that helps
Cheers
Phil

edit: 4 mins too slow


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## katzke (15/9/09)

Dumb question but you do have the vessel you are transferring from much higher then the vessel you are transferring to? The level of the donor liquid needs to always be higher then the level of the liquid you are transferring to.

Also make sure as noted you have enough hose to go to the bottom of the second vessel (only to control oxidization). 

Last the entire hose and cane needs to be full of water not just part of it. Once you put your thumb over it will not leak enough out to cause big problems. If it does you have a leak in the hose to cane connection or your thumb is loose.

A tip when emptying the water is to put your thumb back over the end of the hose to stop the flow so you do not dump beer all over the place. I do the same thing to get my hydrometer sample.


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## Pennywise (15/9/09)

My hose should be plenty lone enough, about 2m. I haven't had the whole lot filled with water, just the whole hose, so I'll give that a shot. I bought the cane to transfer from a 60L fermenter to kegs (19L), I cracked it and had to lift the bloody thing up on the bench and use my "normal method" of using the bottling wand from the tap with a piece of hose shoved on it, talk about heavy. I was also under the impression that as long as the beer out part of the tube was lower than the donor liquid that's all that mattered, I'll whack it on a milk crate or something next time. Hopefully If I put all these into action it'll work.

Cheers people I feel a bit better now, and somewhat silly


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## Guest Lurker (15/9/09)

You need the final fluid level in the vessel being emptied, to be higher than the final fluid level in the vessel being filled. Its a syphon, not a pump. So, unless I have misunderstood, you might as well use the tap?


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## Pennywise (15/9/09)

Seems a unit of some sort that's high enough with wheels is to be built.


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## fraser_john (15/9/09)

I use one of these, not sure where you get them here in Australia. Racking cane goes through centre hole and I attach a sanitary filter to the other one, then attach aquarium pump to sanitary filter to pressurize carboy or cube enough to get syphon started. Eezy peezy.

I do know that place ships to Australia, I bought 500ml of StarSan from them before it was sold here and they shipped it no problems.


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## oaf (15/9/09)

When looking for your fermenting fridge, may I recommend the 'upside-down' variety...it gives you natural gravity advantage.





I use a clamped 1/2" diametre stainless tube to sit in the demijohn at any level, which is attached to a 2m clear hose that ends at a bottling wand.

Start siphon with tube full of water. Stoppable any time with no mess at the bottling wand.

I fill kegs, longnecks or stubbies from this - easy as!!


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## phonos (15/9/09)

I use this method:

Sanitary Siphoning

I don't bother with the glove though - I stick my hand in sanitiser. I also have a swig of whisky to make sure my breath is relatively bug free too - at least that's the reason I give to others...


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## hazard (15/9/09)

Homebrewer79 said:


> Yes I searched
> 
> How the feck do get these things going? I'm about to throw this thing through a window, I've tried the fill it with water first trick, tried the dunk up and down, tried swearing at it and threatening it. Is there any other tricks people use to get these mongrels going? I'm giving it one more chance before it gets hurled over the fence, hopefully I take out some of those yappy friggin' dogs next door, that'll make me feel better.
> 
> Rant over :angry:



This question appears to come up every week or so, so I'll give same answer I always do.
Suck on it.
I usually rack each brew twice - from primary fermenter to a secondary vessel after 2 weeks, prior to cold conditioning, and after cold conditioning rack again for bulk priming. I brush my teeth before I suck on the siphon, but take no other precautions (apart from sanitisation of equipment). Have NEVER had an infection. 
I find this method simple and effective, and I also get to taste the beer at end of fermentation and before bottling - a quick check to make sure its OK!! I may stop this if I ever do get an infection, but as it never happens in practice I wonder why people feel so paranoid about this method. Has anyone actually managed to infect their brew by sucking on a siphon? If so, i think that you have bigger problems than infected beer!


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## EK (15/9/09)

I have used the line-filled-with-water method and only had problems when the line I was using did not properly seal with the hard tube section. Apart from that all has been Ok and transferred just fine. I use this method for 5L glass demijohns.

For carboys, I can get fit my Easy-Siphon in, it does not require water, and it works a charm every time. This is the one I bought...though I bought it at Quality Home Brew Supplies when I was in store.

:icon_cheers: 
EK


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## apd (15/9/09)

Here's the method I use.

Equipment needed:
Racking cane attached to 2m of hose with a hose clamp (the cane I have is a 12mm diameter stainless tube with a bend in the end)
The container you're transferring from
The container you're trasferring to
Another smaller container to take the initial dump of sanitising solution
A jug full of sanitising solution/sanitised water

Step 1: Fill hose (only hose). Blue liquid is sanitising solution or sanitised water. You want it fill so the liquid is as close to the point where the hose joins to the cane.
Step 2: Quickly lower end of hose into dump vessel. If you do it quick enough, there's no need for jiggling, sucking or any other tricks. If it's not working, it's because you didn't drop the hose fast enough or because there's a blockage. Sometimes there's just a trickle of the wort coming through the syphon. Restricting the hose a little until fills with the wort can fix this. Or just start the syphon again.
Step 3: Once the wort (shown in red) is flowing out, switch the hose to your other container.


With practise you can get the syphone going with a minimum of fuss and loss of precious, precious beer.

Andrew


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## TidalPete (15/9/09)

EK said:


> For carboys, I can get fit my Easy-Siphon in, it does not require water, and it works a charm every time. This is the one I bought...though I bought it at Quality Home Brew Supplies when I was in store.



Got my Easy Auto Syphon from the same place years ago & never had a dud syphon get. Only use it for kegging\racking wort in my plastic fermenters that have no tap. It's no good with hot liquids though as the plastic would buckle from the heat.
Not sure if you can get stainless steel ones in Australia although I've seen them on some Yank websites but can't find them ATM.  

TP


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## bear09 (15/9/09)

Yep - get the easy syphon.

$20 has saved me a bucket load of frustration.

It has never failed me nor given my beer an infection.

Cheers


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## skippy (15/9/09)

Homebrewer79 said:


> Yes I searched
> 
> How the feck do get these things going? I'm about to throw this thing through a window, I've tried the fill it with water first trick, tried the dunk up and down, tried swearing at it and threatening it. Is there any other tricks people use to get these mongrels going? I'm giving it one more chance before it gets hurled over the fence, hopefully I take out some of those yappy friggin' dogs next door, that'll make me feel better.
> 
> Rant over :angry:




Smash syphon into small bits it will make you feel better, then go and purchase an auto siphon from the G&G - you will never regret the purchase!!!!


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## Fourstar (15/9/09)

i do the water method but with starsan i use to sanitise the hose. I simply run off a little of the beer (maybe 300ml) to ensure i knock out excessive sanitiser (usually the beer follows an air pocket after the sanitiser anyway) then transfer to secondary/keg. 

Easy as pie! Ive also thaught about using a beer out connect connected to the beer out post on my keg with some line and dangle that into the fermenter below the surface . Then use a gas in connector on the gas post with a small length of line and breathe in. The only issue is i purge my kegs with CO2 first. So unless i want to pass out and/or die, it aint happening anytime soon. Maybe i can somehow fill the gas line post with water or sanitiser to create a vacuum? by pouring it out into a bucket or something as using vinyl tubing in fridge cold beer is a royal PITA as it sets like concrete!


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## EK (15/9/09)

TidalPete said:


> Got my Easy Auto Syphon from the same place years ago & never had a dud syphon get. Only use it for kegging\racking wort in my plastic fermenters that have no tap. It's no good with hot liquids though as the plastic would buckle from the heat.
> Not sure if you can get stainless steel ones in Australia although I've seen them on some Yank websites but can't find them ATM.
> 
> TP



It wouln't be any good for hot wort, but perfect for fermented beer ready to be packaged.

:icon_cheers: 
EK


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## Fourstar (15/9/09)

EK said:


> It wouln't be any good for hot wort, but perfect for fermented beer ready to be packaged.
> 
> EK



Mine worked, for around 10 batches until the plastic fractured on the outer tube and the bobble to start the siphon broke  Was great while it lasted!


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## EK (15/9/09)

Fourstar said:


> Mine worked, for around 10 batches until the plastic fractured on the outer tube and the bobble to start the siphon broke  Was great while it lasted!


Hmm...I thought that it would have cracked from the heat on the first run...or warped from it at the very least.

:icon_cheers: 
EK


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## Brew Matt (18/4/17)

fraser_john said:


> I use one of these, not sure where you get them here in Australia. Racking cane goes through centre hole and I attach a sanitary filter to the other one, then attach aquarium pump to sanitary filter to pressurize carboy or cube enough to get syphon started. Eezy peezy.
> 
> I do know that place ships to Australia, I bought 500ml of StarSan from them before it was sold here and they shipped it no problems.


Does anyone know what this device was - the link does not work anymore?


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## GibboQLD (18/4/17)

Brew Matt said:


> Does anyone know what this device was - the link does not work anymore?


Hope this helps:



>


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