Beer Transfer (to kegs)

[peebee]

Beer transfer from a 70L floor standing conical fermenter to kegs needs a pump. I've been using a little 12V centrifugal pump but it failed the other day and repairing it (the power wire had come adrift) meant taking a look at the inners:

Not what you would call "food-safe"! It might be magnetically coupled, but in these little pumps that can mean the coils and electronics (electronics replace "brushes" in these brushless designs) but the static magnet remains on the pump's main shaft, i.e. in the beer! The shaft and magnet are in a deep well that probable doesn't sanitise easily. The fast spinning impeller is also (apparently) responsible for creating foam (knocks CO2 out of solution - there's no air to mix in and crate foam). So a replacement was in order.

So I'm looking at diaphragm pumps. They are used in the USA (Anti-Gravity Transfer Pump) but over here? I don't trust the "generic" cheap Chinese ones, but these seem to be "food-safe" (from the material list, not because they say "food-safe"): Seaflo 12V 4.3 LPM Water System Pump: Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors.

Anyone experience using this type of pump (for beer transfer, they are not suitable for hot operations) or can suggest something else perhaps? I'm not looking for high flow, 4-8L per minute is fine.

 

[peebee]

So no-one has an opinion of using diaphragm pumps for transfer of fermented beer? You bunch of light-weights! Well I've bought a Seaflo (Lighteu GmpH) 4.3 LPM pump and I'll report back. The pump does claim to be suitable for food use; "Food beverage filling & liquid transfer" which apart from actually saying "beer" sounds like it should cover it. I'm just slightly worried as to whether the beer can handle the torture a diaphragm pump is going to dish out (though I happily subjected my beer to the thrashing a centrifugal pump dished out, which I guess is much worse?).