So my newish autosiphon has a crappy seal between the racking cane and the outer part and ends up sucking in a bunch of air through that seal. Has anybody else had this problem? Anyone know of a good easy fix for this?
While it is seated and racking beer(when it happens), I used to hold the cane part and turn the outside part until it stopped. It worked most times.
I put my 5/16" autosiphon together dry once and that pretty much ruined it. My solution - bought a new 1/2" version…much better.
I haven’t ever noticed air being sucked up with my auto-siphon. However, I have found out in the past to be sure and wet the pieces before assembling. Putting the auto-siphon together when dry does bad things to it.
It’s sort of the reason I bought a plain ole stainless steel racking cane, got sick of the auto-siphon being stupid all the time. To start a siphon, I just put a 3 or so inch larger piece of tubing over the end of my siphon hose, suck to get siphon going, allow it to run into a separate vessel while I clamp the hose. Then, I either spray the end of the hose or let it sit in sanitizer for a bit before siphoning the rest into my fermenter or keg. My mouth doesn’t touch anything the beer touches, voila, siphon started.
now they tell me…
Mine was starting to leak air also. What I do now is when I take it apart to clean take you finger and gently press the sealing lip out. I then store it disassembled. Wet it and assemble when I need it and hasn’t leaked since.
I’ve had two were out. I just use a cane now.
This is a good idea. My solution is to use a sanitized turkey baster to start the siphon, this way my mouth doesn’t touch anything and I don’t have to clamp the hose and sanitize anything else.
I’ve had some help with pouring some starsan solution into the gap between the outer AS and the inner cane.
it helps some…but replaced it when that stopped working. No sense in oxidizing a bunch of beer. A recent
Zymurgy has a method to start a siphon using the orange fermenter cap, cane and inline air sanitizing
filter of sorts…Tom Schmidllin may be able to elaborate…
I think my next siphon upgrade will go that route.
I really recommend a stainless racking cane with a carboy cap and a sterile air filter. After switching to this I would never switch back to an auto-siphon. It doesn’t break or craze, I can push it with CO2 if I want, the siphon starts every time without fail . . . it works best for me.
I just fill my sanitized cane and hose with tap water and hold the hose end with my sanitized finger. A few oz of tap water doesn’t do any harm.
I use buckets so the carboy cap trick is useless.
I use a stainless racking cane also, when I’m in a hurry, I use the brass thingy with the marble in it and get’r done. Besides, all the plastic stuff I’ve used always develops VCS(vertical cracking syndrome). I need to order a glass hydrometer holder thingy somewhere. Anyone know where to get one? I’ve checked Cynmar but, no luck.
I definitely had the same problem. I just poured water in the outer cylinder and it sealed right up. That was only necessary twice I think. No problem since then and I routinely assemble dry and do every other bad thing mentioned in this thread. I’m kinda religious about the thing now kinda like those refractometer folks in another thread (btw I have one, but don’t see it as anything to get excited about). That dang autosiphon is just so good at pumping things around, like water and sanitizer and, oh yeah, beer… Not to mention actual siphoning. If I had to give up one single piece of equipment forever, this is the only one that would make me cry (well, brewing equipment that is). I LOVE it. I mean really. Bigtime.
Ok, I’ll stop.
Do you just blow into the filter real hard if not using CO2?
I’ve found that a little keg seal lubricant helps a lot.
Yep. I have one of these and have used it once. It worked as advertised (more or less) but it hasn’t divorced me from my autosiphon. At some point I do plan on taking that carboy cap and rigging up a closed transfer system using CO2.
Yes, like tygo said, you just blow into it. I don’t think you have to blow that hard, but it depends on how high you have to push the beer to get to the top of the racking cane.
It sounds like you need to replace the piston cup seal at the end of the caning stick. Mine takes a 12mm x 18mm x 5mm seal. A package of five is less than $7 on Amazon.
I’ve experienced the same. Thought the autosiphon was a great idea. Um, not unless we want to make oxygen ruined beers.
These things are junk.