Syphoning

[PaulStat]

I understand the basic principles of syphoning but as always I have a couple of questions

1. The usual technique of syphoning is to suck on the end of the tube to start the syphon, I presume this isn't a good idea because of bacteria? If so how do you start the syphon?

2. When wanting to measure the gravity of your brew, aren't you likely to spill a bit if your syphoning into a 100ml trial jar?

[Aleman]

I'm a suck starter

Occasionally I will insert a small length of beer line int the PVC tube suck on that then remove the beer line and then drop the syphon tube into the vessel to be filled.

[adm]

I don't know that I'd try to siphon into a trial jar! If your FV has a tap on the bottom, use that....if not, you could use a sanitised turkey baster or "wine thief" to take out some wort from the top of the FV.

For general siphoning from FV to keg or secondary, I used to take my piece of tube, fill it with water and keep a thumb over each end. Then make sure that the dispensing end is lower than the beer in the FV, take your thumb off the beer end and quickly dip the tube under the surface, at the same time takeyour thimb off the other end. That will start the siphon running as it's already "primed" by the water in the tube.

You need a cup or something at the dispensing end so that the water in the tube goes into that.....then when beer starts coming out just let it run into whatever you are trying to catch it in.

I discovered though that it's just easier in the long term to make sure all your vessels have taps at the bottom so you can simply conect a tube to the tap and run it wherever you want.

[Horden Hillbilly]

The usual technique of syphoning is to suck on the end of the tube to start the syphon, I presume this isn't a good idea because of bacteria? If so how do you start the syphon?

You could always cut your tubing, put a small tap in it & cut 2 short pieces of tubing. When you have sucked on the tubing, switch the tap off & change the tubing you have sucked on for the other piece of tubing.

To view mine click here, 2nd pic down.

[BarryNL]

I just use a short piece of wider tubing (about 3 inches) which fits over the syphon tube. I use this to get it started then remove this piece of tubing before putting the syphon tube into the bottling bucket. Never had any problems.

[Madbrewer]

bic biro with ink refil removed and the 'end' cap makes a good mouthpiece to insert into th etube and take out when it starts to flow.