any experience with £25 "homebrew" pump

IainM said:

I reused the disconnect from the tap, with a bit of silicone tubing, which was inserted into a 1/2" BSP female hose tail, which connected to the inlet of the pump. The outlet was connected to a 1/2" BSP full bore tap, for throttling. To that was attached a 1/2" BSP to 3/8" OD hose tail, which plugged straight into the recirculation pipe that goes to the elbow that inserts into the lid of the Bulldog Brewer. The barb connections were secured with hose clips and the male parts of screwed connections were wrapped in PTFE tape (clockwise so as not to undo when tightening). All the bits are 316 stainless steel. The flow is good, faster than I'd need for recirculation, but I can slow it down as needed with the tap on the pump outlet. Testing it out with some VWP to clean off anything left over from manufacturing, I'm very happy with it and I look forward to testing it out on a proper brew. I've got a hefeweizen, a barleywine and a Belgian Dubbel coming up to put it through its paces.

Click to expand...

Cheers Iain. Looks great. Will be interested to see how it performs on brewday, but I'll definitely be looking to get one

Ah this has been a great thread thanks. I'm putting together my list now. Realising I need less QDs/camlocks than I thought, given most of it will stay in one piece, at least during the brew day!

Gave it a go on a hefeweizen last night. Recirculated consistently throughout, no trouble at all.

Oneflewover said:

Cheers Iain. Looks great. Will be interested to see how it performs on brewday, but I'll definitely be looking to get one

Click to expand...

Well I received my pump today, the same one @IainM and @BeerCat got. Looks like a serious bit of kit, surprisingly heavy. Looking forward to giving it a whirl once I get all the connections sortef

I started off with one of those 24v magnetic impeller pumps. Supposed to be heat proof, inert plastic, food grade and so on. Burnt it out pretty quickly. Think it would have faired better if I'd had my filtration in order and maybe a hop back or similar to act as a header tank rather than trying to come straight off the copper. After that I used 24v solar centrifugal pumps. They were adequate, but the flow rate is REALLY low and they don't like pushing much vertical rise. I swapped them out because I started to get a bit more fast and loose with my pumps, scavenging them off commercial chillers, homogenisers, remote chillers, cellar chillers and so on. Cellar gear is a bit like mobile phones. All the big breweries want to tie pubs to their products and offer new cellar gear as part of the contract in order to enforce a hire agreement. The pubs sometimes fit it, usually they don't and as a result there is a bunch of cellar gear kicking around the industry and nobody actually ever wanted. Some of the gubbins, repurposed fittings, bits and pieces are very very useful, but a bit right place right time, looks like junk to most.

Oneflewover said:

Well I received my pump today, the same one @IainM and @BeerCat got. Looks like a serious bit of kit, surprisingly heavy. Looking forward to giving it a whirl once I get all the connections sortef

Click to expand...

Great bit of kit, i throttle mine down to half and its still a fast flow. Only thing missing is an on/off switch.

BeerCat said:

Great bit of kit, i throttle mine down to half and its still a fast flow. Only thing missing is an on/off switch.

Click to expand...

Guess you could add an inline switch?

Have you added a valve on the out side of the pump (I noticed Iain has)? If so why? Cheers

Oneflewover said:

Guess you could add an inline switch?

Have you added a valve on the out side of the pump (I noticed Iain has)? If so why? Cheers

Click to expand...

I have a 1/2" tap on the output as well to control the flow . You shouldn't throttle the pumps on the way in (as it can screw them up) so i have the tap on my boiler fully open and control the recirculation speed with the tap on the pump. I will look into getting a waterproof inline switch.

Oneflewover said:

Have you added a valve on the out side of the pump (I noticed Iain has)? If so why? Cheers

Click to expand...

Hi!
As @BeerCat wrote, the ball valve on the output port of the pump is used to control the flow. These are magnetic pumps - they continue to turn without harming the motor even if the output is just a trickle. You must not restrict the input to the pump.
This type of pump is not controlled by adjusting the voltage to the pump.

^^ they speaks the truth. You're going to love the pump on the BB. It just recirculates beautifully.

Thanks for clearing that up fellas. The existing pump (also magnetic) is throttled on the inlet side, at least that's what I've been doing. Maybe that has led to its early demise!

Looked around for the bits and ended up going to angel homebrew, per Iains post.

Oneflewover said:

Well I received my pump today, the same one @IainM and @BeerCat got. Looks like a serious bit of kit, surprisingly heavy. Looking forward to giving it a whirl once I get all the connections sortef

Click to expand...

Right. I've done a few brews with this pump now. Put simply, it's brilliant. Worlds apart from the poxy pump I got with the bulldog brewer. I've got mine set up per IainM's photos above, I reckon it could suck a grapefruit through a straw! One of my better homebrew equipment purchases