Best Tight Arse Pump For Wort Chiller ?

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mje1980

Old Thunder brewery
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I am looking for a small pump to circulate cool water through my wort chiller. I was thinking of a pond/aquarium pump. But would it handle the hot temperatures??. Anyone know of a cheap pump i can use that will handle the hot temps???????, the flow rate shouldn't be that important as its recirculating through ice cold water, and i can always prepare heaps of ice if it gets warm.

Any advice would be appreciated.
 
MJE,

Try this link.

Graham Sanders My Perfect Pump

Myself I have used a Rio (submersible) Pump to recirculate water through my chiller. Have had it for about 4 years and its performed well. Mine has a 1.4metre head pressure which is more than enough for the job. Can't vouch for hot water. Haven't tried it. Suspect it would be OK though. IIRC cost was about $60.

Mine is similar to this.

Rio 1400 Pump

Try your local hydroponics supplier.

Warren -
 
MJE, have a look at the thread started by pbrosnan, " Chilling Possibilities" in the Gear and Equipment Forum, april, there are a couple of other threads which go into this as well.

Hope this helps
Cheers
Brad
 
I just got a pond pump from bunnings. Does the trick for me... was about $17 from memory
 
By the sounds of it-your pump wont be pumping hot water anyway. You say you'll be using it to recirculate cooling water, so therefore any pump would do. If you put the pump on the "in" line to the chiller it will never even get near warm/hot water.

Unless there is a reason not to locate the pump here, then what's the problem. Any pump will do it.

Cheers, JD
 
You are right jd, im just worried that the water in which the pump is sitting will eventually warm up, it is cooling boiling wort after all, and the heat has to go somewhere. But, i saw a 1000lph 240v pump at bunnings for $20, for $55 i could get a 2100lph !!!!. Guna chack out their site today and ask how the pump handles hot water just in case.
 
Well hopefully your cooling water won't get that hot anyway, else you wont be doing much cooling ;). How much the water heats up depends on how much water you have in the reserviour (sp!) so it's kind of hard to calculate. The more water the better.

We are kind of lucky down here in Tassie, in that water is plentiful (still doesn't mean you should waste it though, eh?) and the water temp out of the tap is pretty cold. As I said in another of my posts, my water was maybe 6-8 degrees at a guess the other day when chilling. It could have even been cooler. Anyway, that equates to really quick chilling times which in turn saves water.

Good luck with whatever you find. I'd be pretty confident that any pump you would find would do the job as long as you get a pump size matched to the work your doing. Get one that's continuously rated too.

Cheers, Justin
 
There is no point re-circulating until you have brought the temperature down to 40 degrees or so anyway, so what JD is saying is absolutely correct. For the stated application, temperature is not an issue. The $20 pump (16L/min) ought to be perfectly adequate if it is strong enough.
 
Steve, is there a reason why i have to wait til the wort is 40c before i use the recirculating pump???, i thought i could just whack the pump on as soon as i stop boilng??. As long as i keep the recirc water cold by adding more ice, i should be able to do it this way shouldn't I ??
 
mje1980 said:
Steve, is there a reason why i have to wait til the wort is 40c before i use the recirculating pump???, i thought i could just whack the pump on as soon as i stop boilng??. As long as i keep the recirc water cold by adding more ice, i should be able to do it this way shouldn't I ??
[post="62780"][/post]​

Yes, you can, but there are reasons why you shouldn't, or at least would be best advised not to. Basically it has to do with the thermal differences involved. The greater the differences in the two bodies in contact, the more efficient will be the heat transfer. So when you run 25 degree tap water straight throught the chiller when the wort is 90+ degrees or so, the rate of temperature change will be quite dramatic. As you have identified in your concern about temperature, the water coming out of the chiller will also be bloody hot. (And by way of energy conservation should be captured by you and used for washing up later, or even in the house somewhere; I once grabbed enough water to give the kids a bath!) Now, if you put that hot water into your icy water bath, you are really going to go through some ice. But without recirculation, it still only takes a few minutes before the water coming out of the chiller is only warm to tepid, even though the temperature of the wort is still perhaps 50 or 60 degrees. This is because the efficiency of heat transfer and rate of temperature change in both bodies is declining all the time. It takes increasingly longer to effect each degree fall in temperature. Somewhere around 40 degrees wort temperature is sort of the optimal time to kick in the ice bath recirculation. The water coming out of the chiller is not going to be so hot as to melt your ice too quickly.

The final word: as another correspondent wrote, if you hook up the pump straight away, you will need the ice and water bath to be large enough that the hot water does not bring down the temperature of the bath. If it became hot, it would not be doing its job. So, like we have been saying, your pump should never be in contact with hot water, at least not very hot water and not for very long.

Does this make sense now?

Regards,

Steve
 
Thanks for the info on thermal transfer, Steve. Just to drift slightly O/T, I have a CFC and I'm thinking of using an IDRA in a bowl of water to move the wort from the kettle to the CFC - looks like the guru does this in his article...here, called "My Perfect Pump"?

Canberra water, is great for chilling hot wort through a CFC B)
Cheers,
Rowan
 
Steve Lacey said:
Yes, you can, but there are reasons why you shouldn't, or at least would be best advised not to. Basically it has to do with the thermal differences involved. The greater the differences in the two bodies in contact, the more efficient will be the heat transfer. So when you run 25 degree tap water straight throught the chiller when the wort is 90+ degrees or so, the rate of temperature change will be quite dramatic. As you have identified in your concern about temperature, the water coming out of the chiller will also be bloody hot. (And by way of energy conservation should be captured by you and used for washing up later, or even in the house somewhere; I once grabbed enough water to give the kids a bath!) Now, if you put that hot water into your icy water bath, you are really going to go through some ice. But without recirculation, it still only takes a few minutes before the water coming out of the chiller is only warm to tepid, even though the temperature of the wort is still perhaps 50 or 60 degrees. This is because the efficiency of heat transfer and rate of temperature change in both bodies is declining all the time. It takes increasingly longer to effect each degree fall in temperature. Somewhere around 40 degrees wort temperature is sort of the optimal time to kick in the ice bath recirculation. The water coming out of the chiller is not going to be so hot as to melt your ice too quickly.

The final word: as another correspondent wrote, if you hook up the pump straight away, you will need the ice and water bath to be large enough that the hot water does not bring down the temperature of the bath. If it became hot, it would not be doing its job. So, like we have been saying, your pump should never be in contact with hot water, at least not very hot water and not for very long.

Does this make sense now?

Regards,

Steve
[post="62785"][/post]​

I agree Steve
Found the same thing with my CFWC - I can't get the wort temp lower than about 5C above the chill water temp. The system is just too inefficient.
I ended up running the chill water thru an ice bath on it's way to the CFWC.


To put a closed recirculating system (as suggested above) in perspective, the temperatures will be the average between the volume/temp of the chill water and the vol/temp of the boiled wort. Not taking inefficiencies into account, a simple equation would give:

Vc = chill water volume
Boiled wort volume = 20l
Tc = Temp chill water = 20C
Tb = Temp boil wort = 100C

Tw (final wort temp) = Tc + (Tb-Tc)/2 = 60degC (for equal chill and boil volumes)

Altering the eq for different volumes of chill water (@20C):
Vc = 40l, Tw = 46.6C
Vc = 80l, Tw = 36C
Vc = 160l, Tw = 28.9C (a 160 litre tank is a fair size)

If you drop the boiled wort temp to 60degC first, the temps become:
Vc = 20l, Tw = 40C (not 60C)
Vc = 40l, Tw = 33C (not 46.6C)
Vc = 80l, Tw = 28C (not 36C)

By dropping the temp to 60degC before recirculating, you only have to pump 1/2 the amount of chill water, or conversely, only use 1/2 the amount of ice (the rest can go in your OP rum :super: ).
 
Trough Lolly said:
Thanks for the info on thermal transfer, Steve. Just to drift slightly O/T, I have a CFC and I'm thinking of using an IDRA in a bowl of water to move the wort from the kettle to the CFC - looks like the guru does this in his article...[
[post="62790"][/post]​

Hi TL I do the same thing but use a washing machine pump, I'm not sure what model it is but it is a universal one magnetically driven and the housing comes apart for easy cleaning. It cost about $70 the only problem is it's not rated for continuous duty as it has no cooling of the motor windings. Saying that I have no problems running near boiling wort through it for 10 minutes or so at a time

Cheers ausdb
 
G'day Ausdb,
Yeah, I was gonna initially go for a March pump but we can't afford it right now - and a pond pump may be a cheaper option that does the same job. The pond pumps use the water they're immersed in to keep themselves cool and I'm interested to see what issues there are with those who have them.

Cheers,
TL
 
No worries steve, thanks for that info. maybe i will let the wort sit for 10-15 mins and check the temp before i start. other than that, i have 3 or 4 ice cream containers i plan to use to cool the water. Might have to get a few more!!
 
ok well I'm not sure if this is the most current thread on cheap hot wort pumps but its the only one I can find....just wanting some opinions on using a hot water circulator pump? it is magnetic drive heat rated etc...information is below.

Product information:

Main applications for this pump are all kinds of water circulation like water heaters, solar water heaters and air conditioning.
It can be used in domestic and industrial applications.

The Pump is leak proof. Motor and pump impeller are separated by a stainless steel shield and coupled by a magnetic clutch.

Specifications:
- Power: 100/80/46W
- Max Capacity: 50/40/25 L/min
- Max Head Lift 6/5/3 m
- Input & OUtpot Diameter 25mm
- Fluid Temp Range: -0C to +110C
- Max Ambient Temp: 40C
- Corrosion free and high quality brass pump casing
- 1/2" brass fittings included
 
what is the cost/brand of that pump.

to me (who knows nothing) it seems like it would be ok ?
 
Hi mje,

I do pretty much what Steve has suggested. i run tap water through my immersion chiller to drop the wort temp from boiling down to around 40/45deg. I collect this water in a big plastic tub, then use it for cleaning etc as it is nice and hot.

Then i use a esky with a small pond pump ($12) immersed in it with approx 6kg of ice and 15 ltrs of water. This gets me down to arouns 20-24 degs into the fermenter.

I think if your starting with ice at temps much higher than 50degc you'll need lots of ice. Ice-cream tubs blocks are ok, but they have a small surface area relative to their volume (as compared with ice cubes) so they melt slowly, however they don't chill down your cooling water as well/quickly as smaller ice blocks which have a relatively higher surface area per volume.

Cheers SJ
 
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