Which Pump

[punkin]

As the title says, i'm looking to covert my immersion chiller to a whirlpool chiller.

The ebay brown pumps seem to be adequate for this volume wise and as it will be circulating boiling wort to sterilise, should be ok as far as that goes. Still reading between the lines there seems to be some hesitation surrounding them.


Are the march pumps three times as good? Or that much more suitable?

Apologies if this has been discussed a thousand times but i have read back through multiple pages anf found little.

 

[bignath]

As the title says, i'm looking to covert my immersion chiller to a whirlpool chiller.

The ebay brown pumps seem to be adequate for this volume wise and as it will be circulating boiling wort to sterilise, should be ok as far as that goes. Still reading between the lines there seems to be some hesitation surrounding them.


Are the march pumps three times as good? Or that much more suitable?

Apologies if this has been discussed a thousand times but i have read back through multiple pages anf found little.

I have a little brown pump and love it. I dont use it to whirlpool and im a no chiller though. I use it to recirculate hlt, and to transfer strike and sparge water to my mash.

Yeah the march pumps probably are three times better, but they are ten times the price.

For me it was a decision of do i really need a march pump for my (different) application and could i spend the change on other brewery toys important stuff.

 

[Tanga]

I have seen inside both (thanks Malted). The march pump is magnetic, which means if there's a blockage or something it's not going to break, so you can walk away. Also easier to take apart and clean (necessary, if you are putting wort through it, you can't just rely on the heat). The march pump is backed up by a big company, and guarantees. Chances are the build quality is better and it will last longer too. It certainly looks a lot schmicker. Very pretty. More power too (not sure how much more though...?). The brown pump has a 'head' of 1.8 metres. Which means that's the max height the pump can pump water before it stops working.

Both pumps will work, it just depends how important the above is to you as to whether you think the March Pump is 'worth it' or not. In this single use application I'd say not, but if you intend to upgrade your brewery it may be.

PS I went with the brown pump too.

 

[Malted]

Hey Punkin, I thought I owed you a useful response.
In the case of a chiller you may want to maximise the cooling water flow rate? I'd look at the potential flow rates of each pump. Having said that X litres per minute may cool sufficiently where X by 10 times more flow may not actually provide a greater cooling potential.

Pumps are handy in the brewery. Hmm that dammed kettle isn't draining quick enough into the no chill cube - I'll suck it out with the pump. Recirculating the wort back through a grain bed with a pump will get a clearer wort (and maybe higher effiency?) and is heaps easier using than running wort off into a jug and tipping it back in the mash. I suspect that once you have a pump you may use it for more things than you may have anticipated.

I use a plate chiller and am dismayed by how much water I put through it and out onto the lawn. I was considering buying a cheap submersible marine bilge pump so I can have a wheelie bin half filled with water to recirculate through my plate chiller. I could freeze some 2 litre plastic milk containers of water to chuck in as reusable iceblocks to cool the water resevoir. This seems more water efficent and easier than using a pre chiller on the water supply to the chiller.

Using a whirlpool chiller setup I reckon the march pump would be the go for moving the hot wort. I am unsure how the little brown pump would handle hop debris but I know the March is ok with it. I have had whole flowers in the pump head, it makes some funny noises. I just momentarily close off the tap on the flow out of the pump and this gives it a chance to chew up the hop flower into bits small enough to pass through; open tap and it spits them out and flow is back to normal. It does not happen often.

I hope this is food for thought about a few options.

 

[argon]

I have my brown pump setup for whirlpool post plate chilling. Whilst haven't used it in a brew yet, I did a trial run last night running hot sodium perc through (not boiling though) and it got the water moving around ok. The pump moves the water vertically about 1.2m through a 1/2 inch silicone hose thrown over the edge of the kettle. If i angle it just right it gets a very gentle whirlpool. Not too concerned about making a trub cone in my kettle as i have a hop blocker on the pickup tube.

Hope to give it a run in anger this weekend and see how it goes moving 43L of boiling wort around.

 

[punkin]

Thank you people. And monkeys :blink:

I have a recirculating system now running with a pair of 12v bilge pumps.










Hard to find piccies i can show here, but there is a 500l tank just outside my brew shed that drains from the bottom of the tank, through the wall into a 200l drum. The drum is kept 3/4 full by the natural balance of the water finding it's own level through the bottom.
The pumps pump from the bottom of the drum, though whatever type of cooler i want and out back into the top of the tank outside.

So i have 600l of ambient temp water i can use through a 360 gph bilge pump running my immersion chiller.

My 160l boil pot was designed to have the right clearance for 20/25l buckets. It has a 32mm ball valve on the bottom edge for a take off. I need to bucket my cooled wort from the brewshed into the house to fill my fermenters, so a plate chiller is less than desirable.



I was thinking of coming off the takeoff for the drain with a 3/4 ballvalve before the 32mm one. That way i could just convert my existing immersion chiller to a whirlpool chiller easily and still be able to gravity drain straight into the buckets when the wort is cooled :beerbang:

I use pelleted hops and was thinking if i stirred a whirlpool before starting the brown pump i would not be picking up much debris?

 

[punkin]

I have my brown pump setup for whirlpool post plate chilling. Whilst haven't used it in a brew yet, I did a trial run last night running hot sodium perc through (not boiling though) and it got the water moving around ok. The pump moves the water vertically about 1.2m through a 1/2 inch silicone hose thrown over the edge of the kettle. If i angle it just right it gets a very gentle whirlpool. Not too concerned about making a trub cone in my kettle as i have a hop blocker on the pickup tube.

Hope to give it a run in anger this weekend and see how it goes moving 43L of boiling wort around.

Please report back and let me know. If your's is a success i think i may go this way. I'd be lifting about 7-800mm and dropping back 500, so shouldn't be too much work for the little sucker.

ATM i'm spending an hour or more immersion chilling, walking back out to the shed every 10 or 15mins to whirlpool and keep the wort moving a bit.
Hopefully this will drop my chilling time down.

 

[dago001]

Just thought that I would post my experience with the brown pump.
I used one for a little while, when trialling and setting up a herms. I used it to recirculate the wort throught the herms. I found that it didn't like any solids at all in the wort, and would stall, although this only happened on initial start up until the grain bed settle. The main problem I had with it was it would overheat after about 15 - 20 mins of pumping 66 degree wort. The pump would stall, and I would have to find a way to cool it before it would start running again.
It may have just been my pump, and I wasn't overly conered as I was always going to upgrade to a march pump.
Hope this help a little.
Cheers
LagerBomb

 

[punkin]

Yes mate it does, i'd like to hear if others have had the same problems or other problems too.

 

[punkin]

Thanks all, i've ordered a march pump.

 

[argon]

Please report back and let me know.

Did the first run on Saturday night with a double batch LFPA. Handled the hot and boiling water/wort fine upon recircing. Had a couple of issues with priming out of the mash tun, which i think was more because of the tun draining rather than the pump not working.

As for the recirc chiller... i recirced through the chiller for about 10mins whilst still boiling to sanitise everything. All fine. Once i turned off the heat i turned on the chilling water and continued to recirc to the bottom of the kettle via a slicone hose layed on the base of the kettle. Didn't get much movement of the wort via the pump. I suspect it's just not strong enough regardless of the return angle.

Still took a long while to chill down to anywhere near pitching temp. Ended up running through about 100L of ambient temp water whilst recircing and then another 40L of chilled to 1C water when draining to fermentors. This ended up getting me down to 30C, when i put it in the fridge to knock off the next 10C.

Need to tweak the chilling process as i suspect i wasn't running the water through quick enough. Although i captured all i could... stills feels like alot of water being wasted.

 

[stux]

I think matho used a brown pump in his BrauMeiser then switched to a march pump because of plastic flavours

I could be mistaken tho

 

[argon]

yeah i read that too... i'll be keeping cognisant of that and will report back

 

[matho]

I think matho used a brown pump in his BrauMeiser then switched to a march pump because of plastic flavours

I could be mistaken tho

nah it wasn't the brown pump but THIS ONE

I think you need a bit of power to get a whirlpool going from what i have heard even the 809 march pump struggles at times

cheers

 

[argon]

nah it wasn't the brown pump but THIS ONE

I think you need a bit of power to get a whirlpool going from what i have heard even the 809 march pump struggles at times

cheers

Thanks for clarifying... i was of the assumption it was the brown pump too. Shoudl have read more closely.
Cheers
:icon_cheers:

 

[nala]

I have seen inside both (thanks Malted). The march pump is magnetic, which means if there's a blockage or something it's not going to break, so you can walk away. Also easier to take apart and clean (necessary, if you are putting wort through it, you can't just rely on the heat). The march pump is backed up by a big company, and guarantees. Chances are the build quality is better and it will last longer too. It certainly looks a lot schmicker. Very pretty. More power too (not sure how much more though...?). The brown pump has a 'head' of 1.8 metres. Which means that's the max height the pump can pump water before it stops working.

Both pumps will work, it just depends how important the above is to you as to whether you think the March Pump is 'worth it' or not. In this single use application I'd say not, but if you intend to upgrade your brewery it may be.

PS I went with the brown pump too.

I use the brown pump,does a great job, 6 litres per minute @ 3 meters.
When I worked - retired now - I used to drive a $80,000 BMW 535 series, I used it to drive to the golf club and to go fishing. I am now rertired and dont have the same disposable income, I still drive to the golf club and go fishing but now I have more sense and less money I drive an old Mitsubishi.
The moral to this is:
the fast car attracted the attention of admirers,did't make me play better golf or catch more fish, the brown pump will do the same job in most instances, the March pump is now doubt the BMW of the two pumps. Hope the beer tastes better with the March pump.

 

[Yob]

Hope the beer tastes better with the March pump.

sure it will.. it will taste March better... <_<

 

[dago001]

I use the brown pump,does a great job, 6 litres per minute @ 3 meters.
When I worked - retired now - I used to drive a $80,000 BMW 535 series, I used it to drive to the golf club and to go fishing. I am now rertired and dont have the same disposable income, I still drive to the golf club and go fishing but now I have more sense and less money I drive an old Mitsubishi.
The moral to this is:
the fast car attracted the attention of admirers,did't makme play better golf or catch more fish, the brown pump will do the same job in most instances, the March pump is now doubt the BMW of the two pumps. Hope the beer tastes better with the March pump.

There are much better pumps out there than the March pumps, but dollar for dollar, on a homebrew scale, the March is the best buy. But who wants to spend over a grand on a homebrew pump. The brown pump may work well for others, but for me, it wasn't any good for a herms system. It kept overheating, which meant I had to watch the mashing process for the whole time. It did help me by letting me trial my herms.
Does my beers taste better with a march pump - can't really prove it either way, but I am getting consistent and repeatable results with the march pump, so I would say yes.
How ever, I am not using it for wort chilling/recirc/whirlpool. I would think that the brown pump I have would not be sufficient to create a whirlpool with 40 litres of wort. Maybe the bigger size pump does?
Cheers
LagerBomb

 

[punkin]

nah it wasn't the brown pump but THIS ONE

I think you need a bit of power to get a whirlpool going from what i have heard even the 809 march pump struggles at times

cheers

It's just a pity to get these responses after i've gone and bought the march pump. :huh:

I was going to try it on Sunday but the tee i bought had a pinhole in it that i'll have to braze up :angry:

Had 108 litres in the pot, so would have been a good trial for it.

I really do hope it will whirlpool as i'm in for $300 with all the fittings and the pump

 

[argon]

I think the only time I'd buy a march is if I could guarantee a whirlpool. (other than failure of course) The brown pump moves the hot wort a little bit, but no whirlpool. Although as long as you're moving the volume around the kettle, as it cools, the break and hop debris will gravitate towards the middle and settle in the centre. You don't need a big vortex or anything.