Pump advice, please

[guypettigrew]

Very confused by the pumps available for home brew, so all advice would be welcome. I've hunted about on the forum, but haven't found any answers yet.

I need to be able to pump wort from a bin on the floor into my FV at a height of about 2 metres.

Some pumps say not self priming. Do I need to suck the wort into them somehow? Some say a flow rate of 20 litres a minute. Wow! The whole brew moved in 75 seconds.

Plus they mostly seem to have male screw thread fittings as inlet and outlet. What else do I need to get to make them useable, please.

Thanks, in advance.

Guy

[Fil]

imho the best budget option is still the little brown solar pumps available from solarprojects.co.uk or ?.com? you can get them cheaper elsewhere tho.. to power them i use ebay china tattoo gun power supplies as the nice easy twist knob control works well..
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Tattoo-Po ... 1533810467

the lil brown pumps are not magnetically coupled but according to the solar projects site are ok to use with a restricted output, mine has stuck once or twice, needing the head pulling off (4 screws) and a nudge of the impeller to get it going?? its a pita but not the end of the world.

the magnetically coupled 12v and 24v pumps sold by mrlard at the homebrewbuulder and by powel brewing are a little more expensive for the black plactic models and more so if you opt for the ones with stainless steel pump heads, but are better pumps and shouldnt need the impellar nudge the solar pumps occasionally do..

then you move into A/C pumps, which are much higher volume and probably would be overkill moving 25l and may need loopback plumbing to restrict without cavitating the liquid in the pump head..

ive used camlocks to connect my pumps to hoses and pots, but will soon be modifying it so that the pump inlet is screwed directly to my kettle valve output.

with the dc plastic pumps caution is needed when screwing to metal fittings as a tad too much pressure can snap off the plastic pump fitting too easily, a good wrap of ptfe will help seal sooner and reduce the risk of snapping..


my lil brown pump in action

[Kev888]

EDIT: Sorry this is a bit long-winded, I've had a 'journey' with pumps..

Yes, self priming means that a pump can suck up liquid (to a certain height), which is fairly foolproof in use. Some home-brew pumps are self priming, but most aren't. For those that don't self-prime you would usually have the pump below the level of liquid in your vessel so that gravity will cause it to fill - though in some setups airlocks in the outlet tubing can fight that.

The reason most aren't self priming is because they have a certain design of magnetically coupled/driven impeller, which aren't usually up to it. However, it means (a) no shaft and seal are needed to drive the impeller, making leaks less likely and sanitation easier and (b) the magnetic drive can 'slip' so you can restrict flow speed with a valve on the outlet side without causing the motor to overload. Pumps with a shaft drive usually need either electronic control or a loop in the piping between outlet and inlet to divert excess flow through.

The flow speed and head (pumping height) are a trade off between each other; at maximum head the flow has dropped to virtually zero, similarly you only get maximum flow with virtually no lift, so typically you will choose a pump that will provide enough flow at the height you want - often there are graphs to tell you what flow you can expect at what height. Though of course if you're pumping through hops, grain or filters etc you also need extra umph to account for the extra drag of those.

The screw fittings are 'usually' a standard UK BSP or American NPT plumbing thread. They can be various sizes, but most of mine have had nominal 1/2" BSP threads (which is reasonably compatible with NPT at that particular size), so a 1/2" BSP ball valve or plumbing connector/adaptor can screw on the outlet with some PTFE tape to seal, or I found the Blichmann therminator wort connectors (not the water ones) are a very nice way to get a 1/2" thread to hose barb on the 12v solar pumps.

TBH I've rather sadly had my differences with the little solar pumps and I'm out of touch with the latest similar alternatives. However at a higher price point, 230v versions of the the march may 815 and also the chugger pumps (both from America) are well respected; I have the former and have been very pleased with it.

One final thought is that working temperature can be important; many homebrew pumps will go up to about 80c which is fine for some applications, but not (of course) enough for boiling wort. You may or may not want to actually move boiling wort, but it can be useful to recirculate it to help ensure the pump and hose is sanitised prior to emptying the boiler for example. I find that option is a reassuring extra to saniclean if I've previously been using the same pump to empty/recirculate the mash, which isn't sterile.

Cheers
Kev

[sladeywadey]

I never had any luck with the solar pumps having gone through 4 of them.

The 12v pumps from Angelhomebrew and homebrewbuilder are good magnetic pumps rated for handling boiling wort.