How did it work, Dude?

How did your homemade wort wizard work out? It was one of these was it not?

http://doityourself.com/store/u514326.htm

If it's not that one, what was it?

It works like a damn charm.

I'll do a qick write-up on it for you later today (seeing it is raining here and I can't brew).

I ended up using this, which you can probably find at any pet store. The part is for cleaning aquarium tanks.



It took a little bit of manipulating but it works great.

What are you using it for? A water powerd vaccum to drain wort?

Yeah, the theory is to pass the water going to your CFC though it to create a vacuum in your carboy.

Okay, no worries when you use this--it never touches the wort. The pic below is where I can explain it the best. I asked the guy who's system this is from for advice on what he did, it is really simple. To give credit where credit is due, he posts as "johnplctech" on the NB forum. Anyway....here goes.


The only thing you'll have to buy for this is a barb fitting, a hose clamp, and possibly some wider tubing or find a piece from an old garden hose. You may also need a carboy cap but I had one already.

Simple, the venturi pump screws onto your wort chiller via a standard garden hose connection. Next, you have to remove the extra piece on the other end of the pump--I used a hacksaw. Pull the slider out as far as you can and leave as much of the plastic as you can when you cut. Attach the tubing or the piece of garden hose and secure it with the clamp. Now screw the barb (I couldn't find the plastic kind in the pic--so I got a brass one from Lowes).

Now get a standard racking cane and put it through the center hole in the carboy cap (or a put a piece of tubing over the end, either way will work).

Put a piece of tubing from the end of the racking cane to the "wort out" outlet on your chiller. Next take a piec of tubing and connect it to the other outlet on the carboy cap, and then connect the other end to the barb on teh venturi pump. make sure the carboy cap is secure on the carboy.

All connections are made now.
You can see it in the pic from my system:


The following steps are critical:

1. Turn on faucet for chiller water. You might begin to hear a sucking sound from the carboy. This is GOOD.
2. Turn on the valve from your kettle to begin wort flow through the chiller.
3. The vacuum created by the pump will begin to suck the wort into the carboy.
4. It will take a few minutes, but you'll get every last drop out of the kettle.
5. When it is done, (THIS STEP IS CRUCIAL), remove the carboy cap FIRST, then put on your airlock or whatever, only THEN can you turn the water off on your spicket. If you turn the water off first, garden hose water will flow into your carboy and you'll have a pretty good chance of ruining your beer.

It sounds clear as mud right now but it is SO easy to hook up and use.

Hope this helped. Please ask me questions if the instructions or pictures aren't helping.

Great explanation but now I've got more stuff I wanna buy! my immersion chiller isn't going to cut it much longer.

Thanks Dude! I picked-up the exact same pump as yours at a pet shop for $6CDN today. I also picked up enough gear to build my cfc tonight, and on top of all that, a friend of mine donated a brand-new 10gal igloo cooler for my MLT which I'm picking up on wednesday!

I'm going to have to use the banana again...

Chairman Cheyco said:

I'm going to have to use the banana again...

Click to expand...

OMG.... LOL.... two bananas in one week!

Thanks for the laugh. I needed one about now....

Dude said:

It works like a damn charm.

I'll do a qick write-up on it for you later today (seeing it is raining here and I can't brew).

I ended up using this, which you can probably find at any pet store. The part is for cleaning aquarium tanks.

It took a little bit of manipulating but it works great.

Click to expand...

Those of us old waterbed lovers recognize this - it is a commonplace tool we use to drain/fill our matresses, although they are getting harder and harder to find.

Cool deal, Dude. I've definitely been thinking of hooking up something like this to get the wort chilled faster and avoid a pump. morebeer.com sells this commercial version of it:

http://morebeer.com/product.html?product_id=6336

Thanks for the write-up on your experience. Cheers

Janx said:

Cool deal, Dude. I've definitely been thinking of hooking up something like this to get the wort chilled faster and avoid a pump. morebeer.com sells this commercial version of it:

http://morebeer.com/product.html?product_id=6336

Thanks for the write-up on your experience. Cheers

Click to expand...

After shipping, you'll be paying close to 30 bucks for that. I made mine for less than 10 and it took less than 15 minutes to do it.

I used it again today--I got every last bit of wort out of that kettle. The thing is awesome.