Beer Forum

Hi Brewers,
Here in Oz, we have found we are suffering from a monopoly in regards to getting hold of March pumps. I've looked around for an alternative down here with no luck. I was wondering about our American brothers, do you all use March pumps or is there alternatives that you use?

cheers

Browndog

I've heard of folks having good luck with the Little Giant pump. http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/pr ... hIndexId=2

Wayne

Bugeater wrote:I've heard of folks having good luck with the Little Giant pump. http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/pr ... hIndexId=2

Wayne

I've got a Little Giant (not that exact model), but as far as I can see it's equivalent to the March 809.

Frankly, I don't like impeller pumps. It's too difficult to control the flow rate. It is my firm intention to buy a 1GPM peristaltic pump (probably off ebay) as soon as I identify the specific pump I need.

Charlie

A peristaltic pump is the way to go. The impeller pumps beat the shit out of your wort, can suck air, and flow control can be crappy. The damn peristaltic pumps can cost thou$ands though.

Here's one i found, but I'm trying to make one myself alot cheaper....

http://brewmation.com/MashPumps.html

Cheers!

UhrigBrauer wrote:Here's one i found, but I'm trying to make one myself alot cheaper....

That's the idea, but 11.6 GPH is too low. For a typical 5 gal mash you need variable speed up to 1 GPM. The March/Little Giant at 7 GPM is too damn fast, it's hard to throttle accurately, and I damn near stuck my last mash!

Cole Parmer makes a peristaltic pump called Masterflex (I'm giving away my research here) that rates up to 4 liters/min, and it has stackable heads so you can run two at the same flow rate and fly sparge very precisely.

Masterflex pumps come 60-600 RPM, and in 0.1 ml/min to 4L/min versions. What you want is the 600 RPM model with the big tubing heads. The problem with the Masterflex pumps on ebay is that they're mostly obsolete and the sellers don't know squat about them, and even when they give the model number the Cole Parmer site is hell to navigate and find info on.

One of these days........

Charlie