wort wizard vs petshop equivalent

so i purchased the petshop equivalent of the wort wizard to use with my counter flow chiller i just built. it gets the siphon started okay and everything but the problem comes when i want to shut it off. i'm going to be filling 2 carboys from my 10 gal batch so i need to turn it off in the middle to make the switch. when i shut it off the water flows back through the vacuum hose and drips into the carboy. i also tried unscrewing the vacuum hose first instead of shutting the water off first and it works sometimes and other times i get water shooting through the vacuum line.

this obviously isn't too good considering the water source for my chiller/wort wizard is a garden hose.

is the wort wizard better than the petshop version in a way that might prevent this from occuring?

does anyone have any recommendations?

Why don't you pinch the vacum hose with a small vice grips. I f that works then install a cutoff valve in the vacuum line

I used to pull off the carboy cap before shutting off the water.

lustreking said:

I used to pull off the carboy cap before shutting off the water.

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Yes. That is a practice you should do no matter what when using a wort wizard home-made or not.

You won't lose any wort--the flow will stop because the vacuum is lost.

Yeah, I sometimes chill 10 gal batches through mine and I just take the carboy cap off in the middle of chlling and put it on the next carboy.

As others have said, you need to break the vacuum before turning the water off. If you don't want to do that, if you turn the water off slowly enough you can avoid the problem this way too.

I use a "petshop equivalent" from a water bed store, but I noticed that I got water in the carboy if I hooked the venturi device to the input of the CFC (water took the path of least resistance and went into the carboy rather than the CFC). I switched it and hooked the venturi device to the output of the CFC and haven't had a problem since.

When I do a double batch, I shut the ball valve on the keggle and switch to the next carboy without turning off the water.

another question for you guys. how much water do you use when you are counter flowing? it seems like i'm going to be using 10x as much water as i had when i was using my immersion chiller mostly due to the wort wizard requiring such a high flow to create a suction. are there any electric means of creating a vacuum in the carboy?

scottfro said:

another question for you guys. how much water do you use when you are counter flowing? it seems like i'm going to be using 10x as much water as i had when i was using my immersion chiller mostly due to the wort wizard requiring such a high flow to create a suction. are there any electric means of creating a vacuum in the carboy?

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Yeah, it is called a march pump.

Seriously, you won't use any more water with a wort wizard/cfc than you would have with an IC. You'll be able to chill a 5 gallon batch in under 10 minutes. Do that with an IC. Can't be done unless you live in the arctic.

So I'm curious, what is the "pet shop equivalent"?
Have a link to one?

Thanks!

(Edit: Nevermind, I did a search and found it: Aquarium or waterbed pump/drain is the same thing).

kinison_fan said:

So I'm curious, what is the "pet shop equivalent"?
Have a link to one?

Click to expand...

I don't have a link, but this is what it looks like:


I believe the brand name is Python, and it can be found with aquarium supplies.