Incredibly basic homebrewing question, but here goes: need tips on siphoning

Did you use a bottle wand?

My process is this:
1) Calculate the amount of corn sugar needed for co2 volumes taking into consideration the amount of beer in the fermenter
2) Boil the corn sugar in two cups of water and allow to cool to room temp
3) Sanitize bottling bucket, bottle wand, auto siphon, stir spoon and all tubing. Oh - the bottles and caps too.
4) Add corn sugar solution to bottling bucket and using auto-siphon, rack the finished beer on top. Occasionally, I will gently stir the solution with the spoon so the solution is evenly mixed
5) My bottle wand has a spring-loaded valve at the bottom (some use a gravity valve). So, with the spigot open on the bottling bucket, I can simply press the wand into the bottle and fill it from the bottom. Just when the bottle overflows, I remove the wand and the resultant drop in beer level creates the perfect amount of head space.
6) Hand the bottle to my partner, who caps it for me.
Repeat 5&6 until the bottling bucket is empty.

By racking the beer from the fermenter, I have a process which eliminates trub/sediment from the volume to be bottled while allowing effective priming. Once the bottles are primed, there is a small amount of sediment. But this is from the bottling conditioning process.

I waste less than one bottle's worth of volume. If the bottle doesn't fill completely, I pour it out.

 

In re-reading the OP, can I ask what size this kit was? I have never brewed a batch smaller than 5 gallons. I honestly don't know the best ways to work with these small kits.

 

OP, it sounds like you are bottling directly from your fermentor which is a difficult thing to do and not get some trub into your bottles during the process. Mixing the priming sugar into the beer inside your fermentor would automatically make a mess of things if you do that because you stir up the trub in the process. (The only alternative method is to use priming tablets by placing a tablet into each bottle.)

I'm going to guess that all of us who bottle our beer do so via a bottling bucket as an intermediary container, which allows you to siphon the beer off of the trub so that only a minimal amount of trub gets into the bottling bucket, and then most of it gets left behind in the bucket when the bottles are filled.

But you still have to get your beer from the fermentor into the bottling bucket, and siphoning is the primary way to do that. If you need a basic siphon tutoring per your post, here's the process:

Most of us use an auto siphon in this procedure, but it's possible to start the flow by filling the siphon tube with water to get things started. Gravity is your friend here, so the bottom of the fermentor has to be positioned higher than your bottling bucket. Place your auto-siphon in the fermentor so that the bottom is just above the top of the trub, and the tubing leading from your siphon is inside your bottling bucket. (Preferably this tubing is long enough to reach the bottom of the bottling bucket so that there is no splashing of the beer as it flows into the bucket, otherwise oxidation is an issue with any splashing that occurs.) Your priming sugar solution can be placed into the bottom of the bucket prior to the flow so it gets mixed into the beer during the process, or it can be added later and gently stirred into the beer.

If you don't have an auto-siphon you can still siphon by using only the sanitized plastic tubing. It is a bit risky because your hand is touching the tubing during this process (never start siphoning by using your mouth), but having sanitized hands should minimize the risk. Fill the tubing with water or sanitizing solution and place your fingers over each end. Insert one end of the tubing into the top of your beer (this presumes that your fermentor is a bucket and that you are transferring into a bottling bucket) and remove your finger from that end of the tubing. (Try to keep the other end in a position that is lower than the beer.) Place the other end of the tubing into a waste container that is large enough to contain the water/sanitizer that is inside the tubing and release your finger from that end. Allow the clear water/sanitizing solution to drain via gravity into this container until beer begins flowing, then place the tubing into the bottling bucket as quickly as you can to minimize splashing. Placing the tip of the tubing against the side of the bucket will allow the beer to flow down the inside wall with minimal splashing. Once the beer has been transferred from your fermentor, there should be some liquid that you have to sacrifice that will remain in the fermentor above the trub, and the amount will depend on your experience in how close you position the tubing just above the trub. There is nothing that you can do to salvage this beer.

Once the beer is in the bottling bucket, a bottling wand is the easiest way to then fill the bottles. The tip of the spigot on the bottling bucket will fit your tubing that is attached to your wand, and the spigot is then opened. Placing the wand all of the way to the bottom of the bottle will open the 'valve' on its tip and allow the beer to completely fill the bottle from the bottom up. Lifting the wand stops the flow, and removal of the wand will give you a standard amount of airspace in the next of the bottle.

If you are using a carboy as your fermentor, I don't know of any way to siphon without using an auto-siphon in the process. Using the 'sucking' method with your mouth will cause 'bugs' that are in your mouth to get into the beer, so that method is not recommended Maybe someone else can chime in on any method that they know to do this without an auto-siphon.

Bottling directly from your fermentor is a very tricky (and potentially messy) thing to do, and should only be done if you are using priming tablets and a bottling wand, and have a good skill at siphoning procedures. It offers a high risk to oxidizing your beer because some splashing is almost guaranteed to happen.

I'll recommend that you practice this process by using water before you risk another batch of beer.

 

A siphon and a bottling wand are your saviors. The other thing that helps as well is patience. If you disrupt your trub. Give it time to settle back down.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/ is a great go to for all kinds of questions. I suggest bookmarking for its tools.

 

OP, one other note about siphoning that I forgot to mention above is that there is such a thing as a racking cane (I don't use one - that's why I forgot about it) which can be attached to the side of a bucket or the neck of a carboy, and the clamp that holds the cane in place allows the tip of it to be lowered into the beer to a position just above the trub. If you use a cane, after it is in position you can then follow the instructions above about using water or sanitizer in the tubing and start the flow that way. There will be a short air space inside the racking cane that will also pass through the tubing into your waste container before the beer arrives, but just transfer the end of the tubing into your bottling bucket after that passes.

Sorry for the lengthy posting above, but you said "basic" so I started at the basic beginning.

 

I use a bottling bucket, and put a bottling wand on my spigot. Then I open my dishwasher, and bottle over the open door to minimize the mess.

 

It is super easy to get a siphon going with an auto-siphon. That being said I do not use one. I am uncomfortable with all of the bubbles in the bend of the auto-siphon, which I have experienced with the two that I have owned.

When I bottle, my process is this...
Boil priming sugar.
Pour priming sugar solution into sanitized bucket (I do not use a bottling bucket).
Attach sanitized racking cane to tubing.
Hold the openings of the racking cane and tubing together at equal height (very important to be equal) in one hand. Pour preboiled and cooled RO water into tubing until tubing and cane are full of water.
Quickly thrust racking cane into primary being careful to not let it settle into the bottom of the bucket.
Place tubing into bottom of sanitized bucket and start siphon being careful to maintain tubing under fluid level in bucket.
After transfer I rinse and re-sanitize cane and tubing.
Attach sanitized bottling wand.
Refill cane, tubing, and wand with preboiled cooled RO water.
Thrust cane in bottling bucket and let it go to the bottom this time.
Start siphon in an empty container until water is through tubing.
Start bottling.

 

http://howtobrew.com/ ...or buy the book...you need the big picture before jumping in to the swamp

 

I use the highly sophisticated tool known as a condiment bottle. Buy one at your local grocery store for $1. Fill with sanitizer, and use to fill the hose attached to your racking cane.. Dump the sanitizer, and it kicks off your siphon. Cheap, effective, and clean. Pair that with a bottling wand, and you are good to go.

Although since I keg it is far easier, and my new fermentation chamber has a co2 hookup to push the beer out of the racking cane, so I don't even have to worry about siphoning.

 

I had a quick look at the video they have on their website. Their process is very similar to what we've discussed, but they recommend racking on top of the priming solution directly in a pot and then filling the bottles from there.

They are initiating a siphon by filling the tubing with sanitizer, releasing the clamp, then inserting the tubing into to bottle only when the sanitizer has run out. Once the siphon is started, you could just fill bottle after bottle until the pot is empty.

The key points are to rack from fermenter into the pot while carefully avoiding sediment and using the clamp to control the mess. They don't really say where to direct the sanitizer that is pulling the beer through the line. Depending on what you have, you might have the pot elevated over the height of the sink, or (more likely) you will have to bottle on the floor and have a bucket handy.

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/instructions