I picked up an auto-siphon that I thought matched me extant tubing. No luck. The tube was too small to get over the mouth of the siphon, and too large to squeeze inside of the thing.
Auto-siphons are an important thing. Moving beer from one bucket to another cleanly, without muss or unsettling, is critical to the brewing process.
I was working on homebrew late at night, when all good homebrew shops were closed.
First, and this worked one time, I did my best folding and shoving job to get the mouth of the siphon to swallow a jammed-up tube. The tube was folded and bent to make this happen, and it did not form even remotely something resembling a good seal. I wrapped it, then, with saran wrap. I needed to tighten it more, so I also got some rubber bands rigged them above and below the saran bandage, tightening them with a plastic knife that I could twist inside the rubber, and leave in place.
Ugly, but it worked once. I was concerned about sanitation so I stripped the saran wrap, and thought I'd try something else.
The second thing I tried was taking a knife and cutting a harelip out of the tube. Then, I jammed it on as best I could, and got out a match to melt the plastics together. This worked for a little while.
When I was racking the home-toasted wheat malt porter down to the secondary, I heard the sucking sound of air in the line. Oh, no! I pushed hard while racking to seal it with pressure.
The whole mess is in the trash, now. Everything worked. Once.
It gets you through a brewday and replacements aren't too expensive. Next time double-check the line.
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