Non-electric pump recommendations?

I would like to make the move from gravity feed to single tier, but remain untethered to a wall outlet. thinking manual crank pumps would be the best fit for cost, control, etc. but don't know of any high-temp food grade manuals. maybe there are propane-powered pumps? or other physics-based fluid transfer options?

any thoughts or links would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

if you are determined to be free of the wall, your best bet is going to be a diaphragm pump. It will also likely be air powered, though you may get lucky and get one with a manual pump.

They are used extensively in chemical handling and processing including industrial size washing machines (think Hospital, hotel) and thus made from materials that will likely be food safe available in a wide range of flows, and easy to disassemble.

I would never trust a used one though, so you are likely going to drop $350 or more for a new one.

Flows will also tend to surge a bit.
[ame]http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=air+diaphragm+pump&aq=0&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=air+dia&gs_rfai=[/ame]

you could use a drill powered pump like this guy does http://home.comcast.net/~midnighthomebrewers/brewladder.htm

Neat link! Here is the pertinent info from their:

"There are many drill-powered water pumps out there, but I found one which is uniquely suited to our needs because it has a tolerance of water temperature up to 220°. The pump I found costs $15 plus shipping, from www.northerntool.com. Go to the site, enter "drill pump" in the search field, and you'll go right to it."

Also he says this:

"[One word of advice: if you use this pump, which has now served me very well in the four (4) years since originally building the BrewLadder in 2004, you'll want to disassemble it and completely de-grease the insides. It is packed with white petroleum grease, which will gradually find its way into your sparge water and your beer. It is simple to break the pump down, give it a good soak and rinse in some P.B.W., and reassemble.]"

Great info! I had seen this pump before and wondered if it would work in a brew rig.

Great stuff - thanks RC! i think i had read that the "food-grade"-ness of the construction material of this type of pump was undocumented, and Northern Tool was unable to substantiate the temperature tolerance factor when I called just now. but the brewladder guy seems to like it, and it's cheap enough for a gamble.

The heat and food-grade issues might be mitigated by brass construction, as seen here: http://www.leylandhomebrew.com/item1458.htm - any thoughts on that? I figure it probably comes all gooped up but as long as I could disassemble to clean it out and substitute any non-food-grade seals, i think it should be okay...

also, i would try to fit the drive shaft with a hand crank of some type to substitute for the drill, but i don't know how feasible that is because i've not yet seen one in action. welcoming thoughts on that idea as well.

You could use one of those pumps for everything except for the "cold side", since they're almost impossible to sanitize. The pump head on march pumps (at least the ones people use for home brewing) is sealed from the motor and is driven via magnets. The seals around the input shaft on those drill-driven pumps can harbor nasties that will get into your wort. Not a concern pre-boil, since that's going to kill everything anyway.

If you want to pump after the boil, the diaphragm pumps schmagy mentioned are pretty much your only option, except for building your own peristaltic pump.

Can a diaphragm or other "air-powered" pump head be driven by a manual pump, eg. bicycle pump or foot pump? or is an electric air compressor required to produce the pressure needed to power the pump?

You can make a manual pump similar to the auto siphon but isn't it easier to just collect in buckets and manually dump?

First you get yourself a cow and one of these

http://gizmodo.com/5519101/milking-cows-for-electricity

You generate your own damn electricity, power your pumps and the whole homestead while you're at it.

BM - trying to reduce the lifting involved - happy to stomp a foot pump a few hundred times if that's what it takes, but gotta save the back

P - at first I thought that mechanism was to harness the methane power of the cow, either way that's a great plan! but my idea is more about trying to get away from electricity altogether.

Beyowka said:

P - at first I thought that mechanism was to harness the methane power of the cow, either way that's a great plan! but my idea is more about trying to get away from electricity altogether.

Click to expand...

Ok, just thinking "outside the box" here

You still need a cow, but instead of using it to generate electricity, you hook the treadmill up directly to your manual pumps - the cow is working the pumps, not you. You could substitute swmbo, small children, or a pack of squirrels for the cow.

If you end up making any money on this idea, I'd like my cut, please.




P.S. I'm heading to bed now, the oxycotin is starting to make me a little sleepy . . . .

i totally have it figured out now.

1. build a hamster wheel large enough for my two-year-old, hitch it to the brew pumps.
2. dangle a tickle-me-elmo just outside the hamster wheel.
3. feed the boy candy.

done deal. i might enjoy that on non-brew days too

MacBruver said:

You could use one of those pumps for everything except for the "cold side", since they're almost impossible to sanitize. The pump head on march pumps (at least the ones people use for home brewing) is sealed from the motor and is driven via magnets. The seals around the input shaft on those drill-driven pumps can harbor nasties that will get into your wort. Not a concern pre-boil, since that's going to kill everything anyway.

If you want to pump after the boil, the diaphragm pumps schmagy mentioned are pretty much your only option, except for building your own peristaltic pump.

Click to expand...

What about BK -> pump -> CFC -> fermentor?

you could easily get away with not even using a pump going from BK to CFC to fermentor just by using gravity. leave your BK on the burner and put the fermentor lower. you don't need to push wort via a pump through the CFC as long as the destination is lower than the origin. gravity is cool like that. the only difficult thing would be if the hose goes higher than the drain port on your BK. As long as you get it started the pressure of the wort in the BK will keep the flow going.

just a thought.

p.s.
i am not a thermodynamic expert, but wouldn't the cooling of the wort help to draw the wort through the CFC..the whole heat expanding and cooling contracting thing? but then there is heat and viscocity and i don't know how that would play in this situation.

Yeah, I'm planning on using gravity for now, I was just thinking that If I could score a usable pump for 15$ I'd do it.

extra_medium said:

wouldn't the cooling of the wort help to draw the wort through the CFC..the whole heat expanding and cooling contracting thing? but then there is heat and viscocity and i don't know how that would play in this situation.

Click to expand...

as i understand it, the density differential is instrumental in fly sparging, in which the sparge water is deliberately higher than the mash temp in order to keep the sparge water higher than the cooler wort to prevent dilution while still maintaining the mash density to prevent stuck sparges as the wort drains.

I would imagine the total impact of the density differential while draining the boil kettle through a counterflow wort chiller is negligible; gravity would be the primary force at work.

I use gravity now, trying to get away from ladders and lifting and such, but also without adding electricity if at all possible.

I've got a 2 foot drop off my back porch (where I brew) so I can set the CFC on the porch, but BK is above on the burner and the fermentor can be on the ground below the porch. No ladders Although I'm not Mashing yet, still a bit away from that.

RegionalChaos said:

What about BK -> pump -> CFC -> fermentor?

Click to expand...

You could do that, but it wouldn't be optimal. You need a decent amount of "hold" time at boiling temperature to fully sanitize wort, and if it was to get innoculated with some bad bugs in the pump, you're only left with a few seconds time between the pump and the CFC to re-sanitize it.

I can't really say how much of an issue the pump seals would be in a situation like this. With proper cleaning and pumping star-san through the pump before doing the transfer you'd probably be OK, but you are still leaving a vector there for infection that you wouldn't have with a mag drive pump.

It's worth a shot, as long as you know the potential risks. It could turn out to not be an issue at all.