Brewers how many of you want to integrate a pump into your brewery? Or how many of you have added a HERMS OR RIMS system and need a second pump? Well I might have a solution for you. I am going to talk to you today about this pump I bout on the internet. So, why did I buy it? I needed a second water pump and did not feel like paying $100+ for another Chugger. It was cheap less than $30, so I figured what the heck I will give it a shot, if it works great, if not oh well. It is much quieter than the Chugger pump I have. This pump works just like a Chugger or March pump, so make sure it is flooded with water before turning it on. And you can put a ball valve on the pressure side to adjust flow. I found this on the internet. I am not going to say where because I am not getting paid to, but I am sure you can find it if you look hard enough. This is a 12V DC Brushless Solar Hot Water Pump for Solar Panel 3M. The thing that I want to talk about is price, voltage, and connections. Ill sum things up and provide a little demonstration to show you how it works.
First let’s talk about the price. Ok I paid $28.67 for this pump, with shipping. That is a fraction of what you will pay for a Chugger or March pump. I have a Chugger pump which works great but this pump is just as good if not better, simple because I only brew ten gallons at a time and I do not need to move a lot of water very far or vary fast. This is a cheap second water or wort pump for a brewer. So far for the price this thing is great, depending on how long it last I guess. I bought it with low expectations but it has exceeded them so far.
Second let’s talk about the voltage. This is a 12 volt pump which can be good or bad I guess. What I have done is hook it up to a 12 volt 2 watt power adapter that I had lying around from an old external hard drive that I do not use anymore. I tested a few different converters and this seems to work the best. The 5 — 9 volt converters are not strong enough to push the water up over my vessel. I used a 13.5 volt only for a minute and I started to smell burning wires. I quickly shut it off and it still seems to be working fine but just a heads up. I know that there are a lot of green brewers out there, so another cool thing about the voltage is if you want to set up a solar panel you can power this little pump, and really go green.
Lastly let’s look at the connections on this pump, the only negative part so far. This is half inch NTP but you cannot thread on a stainless steel coupler to it like I originally planned. I tried Lowes with no luck then went to old faithful Ace hardware, were I ended up with PVC couplers which seemed to work, but I real was not happy about it. I like to use stainless steel or brass on everything if I can, but when I hooked everything up there were no leaks so that made me feel better. I use cam locks in my brewery so starting from the suction side, female cam lock to a street elbow to PVC coupler. Pressure side PVC coupler stainless steel closed nipple brass ball valve male cam lock. Now of course you can use whatever you use in your brewer that’s up to you, if you really need to save some money you could just use hose barbs and half inch tubing.
Again this is an affordable first or second pump. This thing is super quiet, you can barely hear it running. It is 12 volt so it has to be hooked to with an ac to dc converter. Can be used with whatever you use in you brewer as long as you get a couple PVC couplers. Or if you are smarter than me you can figure something else out. Without further ado let’s begin the demonstration.
Post time: Jun-28-2017