• Please visit and share your knowledge at our sister communities:
  • If you have not, please join our official Homebrewing Facebook Group!

    Homebrewing Facebook Group

Cheap pump and FDA approved 12v 100c

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Lol....no...I am referring to the one that firststatebrewer posted a picture of, because I have first hand knowledge of it...
The really small one.
 
with that 12v I could afford to build a reasonably cheap single tier system, I was planning on doing a two tier with gravity giving me a hand.
 
Those pumps have a purpose, but I am not sure brewing is one of them. The one pictured is next to a dime, its purpose is to circulate water in a waterbath, it won't move water from one tank to another very well.
 
That's the one I use to recirc in my HEX. It does what its rated for...29 gal/hr with a lift of 3'. A nice little pump for the money.
 
Got my pumps today. Here's a picture of both of them. I'll try to get them setup today and see if I can shoot a video of them doing their thing.

IMG_1509[1].jpg
 
And here's the video for the dc12v 108G/hr pump. Sorry the video sucks, no tripod, the lights are poor and I was too excited to get them tested asap :D



Works really well!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Awesome! I'm happy it worked! Really quiet too! How'd you connect the inlet?

Had some spare vinyl tubing around. For the 12v, the inlet is 1/2"ID and the outlet is 5/16"ID.

For the 6v, I used 3/8" ID for inlet ad 1/4" ID for outlet. The 3/8" did not make a tight connection and it was dripping a little, but can probably use a clamp or find the right size tubing for it.
 
I had planned on using one of these to circulate the water in my HLT for HERMS.

Also had a plan to use it to circulate ice water from one container into a fermentation container as a poor man's temp controlled ferm chamber.
 
daksin said:
Have you tried it at temperature? I know some cheap pumps can fail to couple at near-boiling.

I've ran mine up to 170f in a HERMS exchanger but the pump is located outside of the vessel.
 
I had planned on using one of these to circulate the water in my HLT for HERMS.

Also had a plan to use it to circulate ice water from one container into a fermentation container as a poor man's temp controlled ferm chamber.

I like the temp control idea. Could you use the small pump to cool your beer lines?
 
By the way, I was able to run the 12v pump with a standard 9v battery and the 6v one from a usb port.

The 12v one did make a different sound with the 9v supply, so it was obviously not operating as fast as with the 12v supply. I did not notice any difference in the 6v pump when connected to the 5v supply (USB).

YMMV.
 
I like the temp control idea. Could you use the small pump to cool your beer lines?

That's a good question. I can see a device that pumps chilled water through tubes around serving lines, but I think someone with actual line chilling experience pipe up. These pumps aren't built to have much lift. Too much resistance and it might not function properly.

The temp control idea is simply a small cooler or container with a block of ice and some water in it. When the temp in the ferm chamber turns on the control output, it turns on the pump which pumps the ice water into the top of the ferm chamber. When the water level reaches the drain hole it flows back into the ice block to get chilled.

I have no idea how practical this is, but I can see how it might save space and maybe some money depending on the price of a CL fridge and whether or not you had suitable containers. The hardest part was coming up with a cheap pump.
 
Do you guys think that the 12v pump would work well for setting up a Jamil style whirlpool IC? I think I might buy it for that purpose.
 
By the way, I was able to run the 12v pump with a standard 9v battery and the 6v one from a usb port.

The 12v one did make a different sound with the 9v supply, so it was obviously not operating as fast as with the 12v supply. I did not notice any difference in the 6v pump when connected to the 5v supply (USB).

YMMV.

I ordered two of each, they came in one box, and I can't tell which is which :confused:

Am I missing something??
 
Does the larger (12v) pumps seem plenty capable for doing a single tiered brew system? I'm mainly looking for something to pump hot water from the brew kettle to the mash tun, then pump the wort back to the brew kettle. Think this one could handle it?
 
As with any application needing a pump, you'll need to look at your flow and lift needs and compare them to the pump specs...
 
Keep the updates comin. Looking at this pump myself for a small batch single vessel system with a small footprint/integrated control box
 
Back
Top