aquarium pump to help circulate mash water?

[domdom]

i've heard of folks using an aquarium pump to circulate water in swamp coolers to help keep the temp even. i was wondering about possibly using one to help circulate the water in my mash tun to see if it would help with efficiency. has anyone else tried this or have any input on if it would work?

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

I'm not sure your going to get much positive feedback from a non food safe fountain type pump.If you want to go cheap Ive used this a few times but found mash recirculation unnecessary.A good ol' spoon here and there just to even the temp works for me.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Solar-12V-2...edd48f4&pid=100033&rk=1&rkt=4&sd=290934852826

 

[domdom]

I'm not sure your going to get much positive feedback from a non food safe fountain type pump.If you want to go cheap Ive used this a few times but found mash recirculation unnecessary.A good ol' spoon here and there just to even the temp works for me.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Solar-12V-2...edd48f4&pid=100033&rk=1&rkt=4&sd=290934852826

that might be worth trying to see if it really makes a difference. cheap enough not to break the bank if it does not work. how did you power it? battery or some kind of adapter?

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

that might be worth trying to see if it really makes a difference. cheap enough not to break the bank if it does not work. how did you power it? battery or some kind of adapter?

An old laptop charger with 12v rating

 

[dlovin]

I wouldn't use aquarium pumps . They are not meant rated for mashing temps . The biggest issue is the plastic warping and secondly there is much debate over chemicals leaching out of the plastic. There is a very long thread on this issue and these pumps. I just recently purchased two of those pumps just recently . View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1464180963.266382.jpg. So far they work great . I power them with old laptop chargers as well , any power supply that will put out 3 amps or higher will work . I split the input between two pumps. During the boil I put one output flowing through the hop spider and one against the side of the kettle to whirlpool

 

[HTH1975]

I use the same pumps to recirculate my mash and it works fine. It has needed taking apart once as it got clogged up.

 

[domdom]

can someone post a pic of how they wired it to the laptop power supply? I'm thinking since it's AC i'd just solder one lead to each of the prongs/stripped wires of a 12volt adapter but want to make sure.

do they have any kind of speed control or would i need to make a throttle system if i wanted to speed/slow the wort flow?

has this helped folks with increased efficiency, and if so, how much? Also, does it cause issues with the mash temp dropping too much?

thanks again for the input.

 

[dlovin]

There is variable speed power supplies that you can buy on eBay. The way I have mine wired up is just soldered directly to switches . The input side of the switch is just wrapped around screws mounted through the wooden box . That way I can switch out the power supplies for UPS batteries if I was brewing somewhere without power, or I want to ramp it up to 24V View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1464222764.774182.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1464222785.557337.jpg.. Forgive my horrible wiring this was cobbled together rather quick .There is a good thread, albeit really long right here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=375904 that has a ton of info and links to everything people are using

 

[dlovin]

For slowing the wort you can just close the ball valve restricting the input

 

[Jim311]

I tried it but all my fish died.