Techniques to bottling Wine question

[Seanav]

Hi
New Brewer, keen on brewing cider, i decided to try the kit with a 6 bottle Beaverdale kit
First problem was not having any equipment small enough which meant extracting to secondary was difficult as the wine was only about 3 inches deep in the FV.
Next problem was 4 litres of wine in a 5 litre Demi John and too much headroom
Still all went reasonable well , even if I was now down to 5 bottles , it cleared and tasted like wine , albeit wine thats a bit sharp and needs to age

But my biggest problem has been getting it from the DJ into bottles

used a tube, sucked and then covered myself with wine every time I extracted as the wine neared the top of the bottle .(shed smells gorgeous though!)
Is it simply technique ? Am I missing a handy bit of kit ? I have a very useful bottle filler and bottling bucket for beer which works excellently but thought it would introduce too much oxygen and many of the videos Ive watched bottle straight from DJ to bottle ?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Get an auto syphon and little bottler they make the job so much easier.

 

[Yellow Car]

Or even a basic syphon tap on the end of the tube makes it so much easier as you just turn it off as your bottle fills.
A clothes peg on the tube as it enters the demijohn will stop the syphon tube from dropping to the bottom of the demijohn if you let go, so that can free up a hand to operate the tap if you need to, but it's not too tricky to hold and operate the tap in one hand.

 

[Seanav]

Thanks for the replies ...both really helpful, cheers

 

[Robin54]

I syphoned my (buy all the sainsburys discount raspberries) wine into a 5L jug and then poured it into bottles. Not sure its best practice, but at least
I could see how many bottles I needed. If this is a bad move please let me know, since Im not a wine maker. Just as aside one batch was reinforced with a bottle of that Polish Raspberry juice. The result on bottling was something with intense flavour and a huge alcoholic kick - bit like a liquor.

 

[ChrisT]

See @Chippy_Tea 's post here

Tips on syphoning

What I've settled on is; two clips, simple syphon tube, tap and bottling wand. In addition I have a very short length of syphon tube to fit over the end of the tap, to keep the tap clean when doing the initial suck.

Personally I would avoid the autosyphons that have a small moving tube inside a larger one, it lets in too much air in my experience I could never get a good enough seal between the two. There other types but I've never tried them yet.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I forgot i had posted that

Tips on syphoning

 

[Supersocks]

For demijohns i just use a regular syphon and one of those plastic taps like above in the thread , You get pretty good with the sucking after a couple of goes with no spillage/wastage.
I have a small demijohn auto syphon but I find it leaves to much behind (yes i'm that tight) and is a bit of a faff.
As you are in Ireland like myself, I'd suggest this one - Young's Simple Syphon or here (better wine selection in stock) https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/simple-syphon-p-88.html?cPath=2_30 , which is what i use.

 

[Seanav]

For demijohns i just use a regular syphon and one of those plastic taps like above in the thread , You get pretty good with the sucking after a couple of goes with no spillage/wastage.
I have a small demijohn auto syphon but I find it leaves to much behind (yes i'm that tight) and is a bit of a faff.
As you are in Ireland like myself, I'd suggest this one - Young's Simple Syphon or here (better wine selection in stock) https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/simple-syphon-p-88.html?cPath=2_30 , which is what i use.

Great ...Thanks!