StillSmart

I'm wondering if anyone can point me to a decently cheap pump that's powerful enough to actually push the water through my t500?

I brought this immersible aquarium water pump, the biggest they had in any store i could find in my town, but it was nowhere near strong enough.

I actully need a pump asap, as I've been experiencing weird water problems in my house, in that pressure will disappear completely for 3-5 minutes about twice an hour. (really i couldn't create the same pressure decrease by flushing the toilet and turning on every other tap in house.) needless to say it plays havoc on my still, and has already ruined one batch of booze.

Shaio,

Welcome to the forum, sorry your first post is about a problem.

Firstly you say “that has already ruined one batch of booze” ruined suggests that it is of no use or has even been discarded. I hope not – you can always dilute it to 30 % and redistill it, it will be a superior product because of it.

They never mention water pressure in the shop or in the adverts do they? It’s a common problem so if my response is over detailed for you, it is intended to try and help others in your situation as well

Sorry I cannot be specific and say that if you buy “this” pump all your problems will go away because I have not bought a pump for many years and do not even have a T500

However I hope this helps, if not, it may help somebody else thinking about the same problem.

First option if your pressure drop is only momentary, such as someone flushing the loo or filling the kettle, a pressure reducing valve will probably solve the problem (circa £20.00 on ebay)

From your description I do not think that this option would be applicable in your case, and as you suggest a pump is needed.

The maximum requirements that Still Spirits specify is 1.1/4 pints per even if you work on a safety factor of 5 in round terms you are only looking a pump with a capacity of 45 gallons or 220 litres per hour that is well within the range of a submersible pond pump that you should be able to pick up from any Garden Center (Every pump should have a graph that shows the height that you want to pump the water to, compared with the flow you need). Allow a good degree of contingency, the figures quoted on the pump will be using hard piping and make no allowances of kinks in plastic tubes.

I would not be tempted to run a recirculation type system with the T500 as the cooling rate will vary as the water reservoir warms up. This is a problem with any Cooling management {CM} type still.

If you are only looking at coping with a 5 minute (lets say 10 minute to be on the safe side) drop in water pressure you only need a buffer of 10 x 1.1/4 pints = 1.1/2 gallon of water.

If you divert your water supply into a 5 gallon header tank (spare fomenter) that has an overflow to a drain it will give you a 20 minutes supply even in the event of a complete water outage, a lot longer if you are only looking at a pressure drop. Put the submersible pump in here and you should have a constant flow regardless of mains pressure.



Hope that is of some help.

Toodlepip

Brian.

Hi mate and welcome

I fitted a pressure reducing valve with excellent results but as YHB says your pressure variation sounds too much for that to cope
Essencia make a pump specifically for stills as link below but I don't know how much they cost or if they are sold over here
You could try the essencia filter stockists such as homebrewmegastore or creative wine making and see if they can help

http://www.essencia.com.au/Downloads/A56.pdf

Cheers
AT

As an aside essencia say the pump is ideal if you distill next to your outdoor swimming pool A common situation for us uk craft distillers !

The Essenica pump will set you back about £150.00 it is my bet that Essenica have bought these and rebadged them(compare the pictures)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-DC-65PSI-0-45Mpa-3L-min-Diaphragm-Water-Pressure-Pump-High-/190582783756?pt=UK_HomeGarden_Garden_PondsWaterFeatures_UK&hash=item2c5f9e7f0c

Cost to you £25.00. The advert is a bit vague if a 12v adaptor is included.

Keep Looking

Brian

The booze wasn't wasted, i cleaned all my brew barrels and a good portion of my house lol.

Thanks for the replies guys.
Yhb i actully have a setup very similar to that already, but ill need a slightly bigger reservoir thanks for the numbers.

I realize i really should of provided some more details so.

The pump i already got, and wasn't powerful enough has a 380 lph with a height max of 0.9m, however was only capable of lifting water about 0.4 meters. 380 lph is 6 litres a minute? do diaphragm pumps work better then impeller pumps for vertical pumping?

Currently Im looking at this http://www.dealextreme.com/p/25w-immersible-water-pump-220-240v-51729, which has the bonus of free shipping, which is importan t since i live all the way in nz, tried to order a pump from amazon earilier and they said free shipping, right up until i went to place the order, then it became 80 dollas worth of shipping on a 20 dollar pump.

While I'm here I mayaswell ask a cleaning related question, how does one get the ceramic saddles clean? soaking them in coke for a few hours makes it very easy to wipe them clean, but is there anyway to avoid having to wipe each one of them clean individually?

The weird thing is my pressure is perfect otherwise, flushing the toilet causes a 3 degree raise in temp on average, and otherwise my temp will fluculate slightly but stays wiuthin a degree, except when water dies occasionally like it does, then well its basically like shutting the tap off completely.

Shaio,

I am struggling with this one as I do not know what the pressure drop is across the T500.

When Admiral Toad was plumbing in a pressure reducing valve, he mentioned in one of his posts that he set the valve to give a pressure of 1 bar (15psi or 10) meters of water.

Do you have a header tank anywhere in your home? - it would not be uncommon in the UK to have one in the loft to service the central heating / boiler. I do not know what the plumbing system is in your part of the world. If you were lucky enough to have such a tank then could you pick up a feed from the outlet from the tank?

Hi mate
Depending whats gone through the column I tend to flood it with steriliser,rinse it and maybe steam it as well ie run with water and no cooling but not for too long
Every 3 or 4 runs I empty them out soak the copper ones in lemon juice and ceramics in denture cleaner.I also sometimes dismantle the column and give the inside a good scrub if it needs it.
Some guys do different and some strip and clean after every run. it's down to personal choice I guess
As you're in NZ would be interesting to find out how much those essencia pumps are

Hi All

I don’t have a T500, so I’m not sure what the requirements of a pump would be.
But I know of quite a few AG brewers that use one of these pumps successfully.

http://shop.solarproject.co.uk/sp2020-e ... -p-10.html

If these are not suitable I’m sorry. Just wanted to point at them in case they can be of use.
Norm

thx for all the posts guys, I actually ended up building a siphon based system because both the pumps I tried failed at there task.

My water pressure has not returned to normal all by itself, so I've reconfigured my still back to how it was and stuffed my mess of tubing in one of my cubbards just incase.