Beer Forum

So, here in luverly Texas it's rather warm, and so I'm thinking of givin the whirlpool chiller a try. I have the immersion chiller and a pre-chiller, but no pump.
I don't want to spend $100-ish on one of them thar fancy March pumps if you fine fellows are able to point me at a perfectly servicable, nicely priced alternative. Maybe something I'd find in Home Depot or Lowes?


Corporal Mick

The march style pump is food grade, can handle boiling liquids (which also sanitizes it in the process) and has a clutch mechanism that allows you to reduce or shut off flow without harming the pump and allowing it to still run. You also need a high temperature hose (many use silcone or rigid copper/stainless) to work with that food grade pump.

If you want to recirculate cooling water in you immerision chiller between a separate ice bath and the kettle you can do that with a home depot style pump, but you don't want to whirlpool the actual wort with that type of pump, just the cooling water inside the heat exchanger.

You could gently stir the wort with a sanitized spoon as it is cooling down to achieve a whirlpool in the kettle and help cool down faster without the expense of a pump and/or gently move the immersion chiller around inside the kettle.

You want the Little Giant 5-MSP. Here's mine with a keg/carboy washer wand attached.

BeerPal wrote:You want the Little Giant 5-MSP. Here's mine with a keg/carboy washer wand attached.

No, no. That won't do at all. If you are going to do a whirlpool immersion chiller, you HAVE to use the March pumps. As BC said, they are food grade at boiling wort temps, and they are magnetically coupled, which means that you can dial down the output side to a trickle, if necesary.

And you are in luck. They happen to be on sale at MoreBeer this month. $130 instead of the normal $150. You can find them a little cheaper (unwired) on eBay - but the biggest drawback to those is that they do not have a mounting flange.

Bite the bullet, soldier. It's one of the best investments that a homebrewer can make into his hobby.


Mylo

Mylo wrote:

BeerPal wrote:You want the Little Giant 5-MSP. Here's mine with a keg/carboy washer wand attached.

No, no. That won't do at all. If you are going to do a whirlpool immersion chiller, you HAVE to use the March pumps.

You are correct. I was thinking he wanted a pump for the pre-chiller.

Ah, pearls of wisdom. OK, thanks for this guys, I will do as ordered (and I love it when you call me "soldier" )