Home   About Me   Design Logic  HERMS Design Specifics  HERMS Limitations

The HERMIT Brewery   Portability    Gadgets    Lessons Learned  Recipes  Links  Contact Me

This is hands-down the handiest tool in my home brewery.  The Auto-Siphon.  I didn't make it.  I didn't design it.  I bought it for $10 at my local homebrew store and I love it.

Before I got this thing, starting siphons was always an adventure.  Pre-filling my sanitized racking tube with sanitizer, then covering the end with my un-sanitized thumb, putting one end in the wort and then letting my thumb off the other end into a dish to drain out the sanitizer and fill the tube with wort.  Then stop the flow by putting my thumb over the end again or kinking the tube and then quickly sticking into the empty carboy.  Then say a silent prayer that you don't lose the siphon for some reason.

Some people actually start siphons with their mouths.  I think this is asking for trouble.

No more.  Now I just sanitize the whole assembly, stick one end into the wort and the other end into the empty carboy, give it one good plunge and viola!  Instant siphon.  No worries if you lose your siphon midstream, just give it another plunge and you're off an running again.

The secret to this device is a one-way valve at the bottom of the large tube.  When the inside plunger is pushed down, the valve closes and forces liquid up the inside tube instead of out the bottom of the large tube.

I would definitely put the Auto-Siphon on the "Must Have" list for any home brewery.

Other Gadgets

6 -Tap Beer Fridge  Motorized Grain Mill  SS Counter Pressure Bottle Filler

Fermentation Chiller  Counter-Flow Wort Chiller   Carboy Washer

The Auto-Siphon assembly.

These pictures show how the Auto-Siphon plunger is pulled up and down.  When the plunger is pushed down, liquid is forced up the inside tube, starting the siphon.

This is the base of the Auto-Siphon showing the plunger.  The one-way valve is at the end of the tube.

Auto-Siphon