silverbrewer
Well-Known Member
This is my first post, so a tiny bit of off topic history to set the scene....
I am about to re-commence brewing after "loosing my way". I went into my local pub in Birmingham UK and had to pay £3.05 ($4.46) for a pint of Fullers ESB, so now I have re-seen the light, and it is my vowed intent to make a Fullers ESB clone, if it kills me! I was using two 22 gallon stainless vessels, and intend using them again, plus a "keggle". Anyway, back to topic...
It seems to me, that given a bit of ingenuity, perastaltic pumps are easy to rig up without going to the great expense of a shop bought one, so this is hopefully the start of a peristaltic pump thread that should put these sanitary and powerful pumps within the grasp of everyone. I will post pictures as things progress. Constructive comments for and against would be welcome....
The reason I fancy building one is that the motor I have fitted on my grain mill is fully speed controlled and very powerful, so I can rotate at any speed from zero to 180 rpm, and it is sitting idle except for when the grain mill is doing it's duty...
All a peristaltic pump consists of is a length of decent silicone tube much like most of us use anyway, and some sort of device that lets 2 or 3 rollers gently squeeze the tube against an outer circular "fence" as the rollers get driven around by almost any motor with a suitable speed, or even better a motor with a speed controller. (Some pumps don't even bother with the outer fence, but as a consequence flex the tube rather alarmingly)The bigger you make the diameter of the surface the tube is squeezed against, the larger the flow rate is for a given tube size and motor RPM, assuming your motor speed is fixed.
I even built a very very tiny peristaltic pump to water cool the brush deck motor of my "Roomba" floor robot, and that has worked faultlessly for a couple of years now, but the water it is pumping is not boiling hot, just very warm!
My main question to the forum is, has anyone running a perastaltic pump had any failures of the tube due to the mechanical flexing of the tube at our elevated brewing temperatures? I doubt anyone has if they have chosen the proper silicone tube, and I reckon that looking at all it's other benefits it should appear more often in our breweries.
Pro's.
Self priming to several feet.
Very very exact flow control via control of RPM, by pulse width modulation or even a stepper motor. If you wanted to pump 1.003 gallons from one place to another, this will do it.
If the pump is turned off, it stops the flow as if it was a tube clamp.
Nothing but silicone tube in contact with our wort.
No violent turbulence imparted to the wort.
Cheap to own if you construct it yourself.
One motor can drive more than one pump
Cons.
If the tube fails you are snookered.
If the pump is turned off, it stops the flow as if it was a tube clamp.
The pump is capable of developing pressure, and suction, so a rims stuck mash could get sucked clean through the mesh bottom
If the motor fails, all your pumps are out, and so is the grain mill.
As an aside, (and a bit electronic) nowadays, almost any motor can be speed controlled, or any RC servo can be remotely driven to open valves etc. via extremely cheap "Picaxe" chips and a couple of relays (PIC means programmable interface controller) The ones I like to use are only a few $ and are designed to be programmed for free, on your own PC and by kids at school. Do not assume though that just cos kids use them at school that it will be easy to get your head round the programming bit though, even though the programming required is as simple as it gets! When you are as old as me, its all double dutch! It must be said that modern chips are very clever and give us the ability to fully automate at a fraction of the cost of industrial controllers.
I am about to re-commence brewing after "loosing my way". I went into my local pub in Birmingham UK and had to pay £3.05 ($4.46) for a pint of Fullers ESB, so now I have re-seen the light, and it is my vowed intent to make a Fullers ESB clone, if it kills me! I was using two 22 gallon stainless vessels, and intend using them again, plus a "keggle". Anyway, back to topic...
It seems to me, that given a bit of ingenuity, perastaltic pumps are easy to rig up without going to the great expense of a shop bought one, so this is hopefully the start of a peristaltic pump thread that should put these sanitary and powerful pumps within the grasp of everyone. I will post pictures as things progress. Constructive comments for and against would be welcome....
The reason I fancy building one is that the motor I have fitted on my grain mill is fully speed controlled and very powerful, so I can rotate at any speed from zero to 180 rpm, and it is sitting idle except for when the grain mill is doing it's duty...
All a peristaltic pump consists of is a length of decent silicone tube much like most of us use anyway, and some sort of device that lets 2 or 3 rollers gently squeeze the tube against an outer circular "fence" as the rollers get driven around by almost any motor with a suitable speed, or even better a motor with a speed controller. (Some pumps don't even bother with the outer fence, but as a consequence flex the tube rather alarmingly)The bigger you make the diameter of the surface the tube is squeezed against, the larger the flow rate is for a given tube size and motor RPM, assuming your motor speed is fixed.
I even built a very very tiny peristaltic pump to water cool the brush deck motor of my "Roomba" floor robot, and that has worked faultlessly for a couple of years now, but the water it is pumping is not boiling hot, just very warm!
My main question to the forum is, has anyone running a perastaltic pump had any failures of the tube due to the mechanical flexing of the tube at our elevated brewing temperatures? I doubt anyone has if they have chosen the proper silicone tube, and I reckon that looking at all it's other benefits it should appear more often in our breweries.
Pro's.
Self priming to several feet.
Very very exact flow control via control of RPM, by pulse width modulation or even a stepper motor. If you wanted to pump 1.003 gallons from one place to another, this will do it.
If the pump is turned off, it stops the flow as if it was a tube clamp.
Nothing but silicone tube in contact with our wort.
No violent turbulence imparted to the wort.
Cheap to own if you construct it yourself.
One motor can drive more than one pump
Cons.
If the tube fails you are snookered.
If the pump is turned off, it stops the flow as if it was a tube clamp.
The pump is capable of developing pressure, and suction, so a rims stuck mash could get sucked clean through the mesh bottom
If the motor fails, all your pumps are out, and so is the grain mill.
As an aside, (and a bit electronic) nowadays, almost any motor can be speed controlled, or any RC servo can be remotely driven to open valves etc. via extremely cheap "Picaxe" chips and a couple of relays (PIC means programmable interface controller) The ones I like to use are only a few $ and are designed to be programmed for free, on your own PC and by kids at school. Do not assume though that just cos kids use them at school that it will be easy to get your head round the programming bit though, even though the programming required is as simple as it gets! When you are as old as me, its all double dutch! It must be said that modern chips are very clever and give us the ability to fully automate at a fraction of the cost of industrial controllers.