I know there are many ways to do this, but when I first started brewing I did it manually. After I realized that was a huge pain in the butt, I moved on to carboy cap. That didn’t turn out as well as I liked so I moved on to the auto siphon.
For $10 I solved my problem and minimize the amount of time my beer is exposed to the possibility of being infected.
Some of the new brewers may walk the same path so I decided to make an article that goes through all the ways I tried siphoning and what worked and didn’t work.
I basically do the same thing but I just use the CO2 to get the siphon started
and I don’t have the fittings. I just hold the gas line up to the carboy cap till
the siphon starts. I stick a cotton ball soaked in alcohol in an air lock and put that
in the carboy cap to act as an air filter, I don’t know if it actually filters anything but it
makes me feel better.
i do it very similarly, only i don’t use co2. i use a sterile filter and i blow into that. additionally on the keg end, i have a ball lock hooked up to the beer out, so i can rack straight to the bottom of the keg. no splashing.
The use of pressured CO2 scares me. There is nothing that makes sure the pressure does not exceed 3-5 psi except the operator looking at the gauge and in my case I don’t want to rely on that.
I use a racking cane and hose. The siphon gets started with the turkey baster I use for sampling.
Been CO2 force racking like that for years. No lifting full carboys, vessels can be side by side. It’s the shizzle! I use a barb to barb adapter(no clamps needed, LOW pressures) to connect the gas line to the carboy cap, simple! I only use enough pressure to move the beer, it may take 5-10 mins. What’s the rush? Purge the receiving vessel with CO2 and your precious beer never sees O2.
I’ve been wanting to set up a C02 push system and really like the flare fitting screwed into the carboy hood. Nice!
On the keg side, why not just use a standard keg fitting and hook up the beer line from the carboy to the OUT side of the keg? You can vent the keg either by removing the top, loosening the IN side, or simply using an IN fitting with no line attached.
Back pressure - it’s a helluva lot easier for that little poppet space to get clogged with random material (think hop bits) and that could cause the pressure to build up
More fiddly bits to ensure are completely sanitized - actually the biggest reason.
Of course nowadays, I brew in a garage and most of my beer ferments in a couple of 10g cornies, so… pressure racking all the way.
And Kai, regarding the pressure - I swapped out my standard regulator gauges with a more accurate low pressure gauge. At ~3.5 psi, those carboy caps will pop off the bottle, so it hasn’t been that much of a worry so far.
There is definitely some advantages to this process.
How much pressure is required to force the beer (5 gallon carboy) up through the siphon rod and into a keg and is that enough pressure to be worried about the carboy or cap blowing up or off ? In other words, is that pressure within the safe operating limits of this system?
Thanks Denny, I was beginning to wonder if it was me being a relative noob that I’ve never had this problem before. My racking cane works quite nicely!
I can still remember how nervous I was years ago the first time I filled the siphon with tap water. Was the beer going to be ruined? I decided there was only way to know, and I’ve been winning that bet for 12 years so far!
I currently use an auto-siphon which works well but with Drew’s system I like the idea of not moving the carboy and minimizing the beer’s exposure to O2.
The not moving it part is definitely the main reason I do it. I started doing it because I just didn’t have anywhere high enough to set the carboys for settling and I really hated a) the danger of moving a full carboy - again b) stirring up sediment that had settled… So, on with the CO2. It also helped that until 2 months ago I got free CO2!
You’ll have to be registered with the wiki (although you can use the same registration as you have for the AHA Forum) in order to submit information. If you’re unfamiliar with wikis, you should read the instructions on how to add information. It will be great to have this procedure on the wiki! Thanks.
Cheers,
Janis Gross
AHA Project Coordinator
National Homebrew Competition Director
