Auto Siphon

[Canadian Brewer]

Hey guys, I just got a delivery this morning of my second fermenter and a new auto siphon! The only problem is that I don't know how to use the damn thing...





I ordered this from thebrewshop.com.au over the phone sight unseen after seeing a few youtube videos displaying their ease of operation. The one delivered looks similar to the youtube ones but also different, what is the red cone with the tiny piece of tube for? I tried starting a siphon with a large bowl of water, however I got nothing. Could someone please enlighten me?

Thanks for any and all info!

 

[hathro]

The red cone is probably a stopper for the top of a carboy.

For now, remove the red clip and use the directions below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIu6IRpFNr8

 

[Canadian Brewer]

Couldn't get the bugger to work for me : (

 

[hathro]

Is it sucking any liquid into the siphon?

 

[pk.sax]

Dude, this is NOT the auto siphon.

The two piece siphon tube, slip the thin one through the the cone (bung) before you insert it into the bigger tube.

Then extend to length required, insert into carboy such that the bung seals on the mouth.

Blow into the thin tube to start flow.

Yep, blow.

 

[lswhi3]

Hey man,
I have the EXACT same siphon, I bought it from liquorcraft in Richmond. Bro, I don't think its an auto siphon at all, might have been some false advertising. No offence to the great guys at liquorcraft, I guess they probably just don't use carboys. They certainly didnt sell it in Richmond as an auto-siphon anyway.

I finally got the damn thing to work for me after a lot of frustration and fear of oxidation and contamination, and the beer has been bottled for about a month and turned out just fine, no contamination and no oxidation.

What I had to do take the little clip thing off. Suck the pipe as hard as I could to get the beer flowing. Plug the bottom with my thumb (which I'd sanitised) and dip the pipe into some sanitiser at which point I'd let go (there goes a bit of tastey beer) and then put the pipe at the bottom of the bottling bucket. I then had to blow through the pipe at the top to make some pressure in the carboy. If I don't do this, the beer flow just stops. Towards then end, a little bit of spit blew through the other end of the tube and into the beer. It was very agonising and thought my beer would be ruined. Lucky it was only a drop and the alcohol must have killed it. Very lucky because at the time I had a nasty case of the flu.

All in all this product is a piece of s**t. However, I'm going to try and save it by fitting some extra vinyl tubing onto the end in the hope that it will create more gravity flow to suck the beer through if its longer and the carboy can sit higher. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you actually have some vinyl tubing left over like I do. If it doesn't work I'm going to buy an actual auto siphon.
I'll either get it from here http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/products/search?search=siphon
Or from ebay depending on what I prefer at the time.

Hope this helped bro,
Luke

 

[pk.sax]

Seriously! I've had had it for three years, never did anything more than for and blow into tube to start flow.

Leave the stopper clip on to cut flow should you need to.

Edit: removed frustrated slur

 

[lswhi3]

Also, if you attempt the pressure thing, make sure you don't blow bubbles into you beer. I learnt that the hard way but luckily it didn't oxidise. You kinda gotta do it otherwise the flow will stop every 2 seconds, plus the flow will be so weak that you can see all the air spaces in the tubing acting like a little complementary oxidation chamber :huh:

 

[lswhi3]

Are you sure you've got the same one? Because every time i stop blowing, it cuts flow after 2 minutes. You should upload a video to educate us morons, I'd definitely appreciate it.

Edited to remove response to frustrated slur

 

[stux]

Do you have the destination of the siphon below the liquid level in the source?

 

[pk.sax]

Fair cop.

Yes, I have the same one.

Make sure bung is pressed into the carboy mouth.

Make sure receiving vessel is lower than the carboy.

Blow in till the flow is exiting the tube. Let it go. Works easily. Can't quite make a video right now, beer fermenting in carboy. Would try to remember.

 

[pk.sax]

Hoping that is self explanatory. Once the flow starts it goes. You blow into the small tube to create pressure to start initial flow and then the carboy breathes from there.

 

[lswhi3]

Ok so yesterday I did my second attempt using this siphon. I used your advice, and i had to blow and suck multiple times to keep the flow going. And then when I got down to 1/3 of the carboy, NOTHING I did could make the flow start again. Furthermore, I even attached some new 8mm tubing to the original tubing to make more gravity to suck the beer out, but it still didn't work. I ended up abandoning it, and just getting some 8mm tubing and sticking it from the carboy to the bottling bucket, and sucking on the end, and it worked perfectly. Not only did it take a 10th of the time to siphon compared to this useless siphon, but it also didn't stop or lose suction once.
I stand by my original comment, completely useless piece of crap.

 

[lswhi3]

ImageUploadedByAussie Home Brewer1402651272.987048.jpg

Hoping that is self explanatory. Once the flow starts it goes. You blow into the small tube to create pressure to start initial flow and then the carboy breathes from there.

Also, on closer inspection of your photo, this is a different product than Canadian Brewer and I am talking about. If you look at the Canada's plastic tubing from the top post, and then look at the tubing in your photo, you can see the difference. My product is identical to Canadia's. Your product looks like it's higher quality than ours because its got what looks like nylon or some other material in the tube. Maybe that explains the difference in opinion because the product does work if it's of better quality.

 

[pk.sax]

It's the same one, I just needed longer tubing so I got some from the shop. I used to use it just like that with a 5L demijohn. Worked fine.

I had to blow twice to get it started today, once started it went like a rocket (as expected - fermenter was on tops of fridge, keg on floor). Stalled at the last 4 ish L. Checked, yep, tube not pushed all the way down. Did that and started it off again, took 3-4 tries because if less volume. In the end I had barely a L that was not sucked up. Overall probably 15-20 minutes.

What I'm saying is it isn't the best but it works OK.

I used to also use thin silicone tube, drop the whole thing in the water kettle and boil, then later fish out an end and drop in the fermenter, fish out the other and drop into keg on floor. Off it goes. The racking cane with the shop one is just easier to push to the bottom with the yeast cap on it too.