Grainfather Conical Fermenter Cooling Pump maintenance and replacement

[Lunesdale Brewer]

I have used one of these kits attached to my Grainfather Conical to circulate cold water from an insulated picnic box since March 2021. I do not use it all the time but I use it during the warmer months for Ales to avoid overheating and whenever I brew lager (mostly through winter), it works well if I change the ice packs in the box regularly.
Mid September I decided to brew a lager style beer using W34/70 and discovered that the pump could not maintain its normal flow rate, I took it apart (four screws on the end) to find that the rotor was clogged with what looked suspiciously like cat hairs (I have two cats that like to supervise my brewing).
The point of this posting is to advise anyone with this kit to periodically take the pump apart and check the rotor for fouling - especially if you have a brewery cat (or dog I suppose}.
I didn't do this routine maintenance and the pump motor became strained beyond repair.
I found an identical replacement pump on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C5JQFTQJ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1
This came directly from China and took 3-4 weeks to arrive so my W34/70 had to work at the ambient temperature (14-17 deg C).

I have connected it up and it works perfectly.

I found another one on ebay that is not the same pump and also took 3-4 weeks to arrive - it is not as powerful and struggles a bit to maintain an adequate flow rate.

Anyone who has this kit and relies on it for temperature control might want to think about ordering a spare to have as back up.

 

[tigertim]

Interesting post; thanks.

I have the same kit for my conical fermenter, but I immerse the pump in the water tank of my shelf cooler/chiller (functionally identical to the Grainfather Glycol Chiller, but about £450 less costly). The pump has been working fine so far but, when it first arrived, I immediately felt it wasn't particularly high quality; especially next to an equivalent SS BrewTech FTSS pump which is weightier, shifts more water and is also quieter.

Both pumps are 12vdc and I've always meant to run them side by side to see if the power consumption is similar, such that I could use the FTSS pump in the event the Grainfather pump were to give up the ghost, but not yet got around to it.

Luckily, my cat doesn't seem interested in going in the garage (my brewery) so that's at least one potential pump failure cause I don't have to worry about

 

[Lunesdale Brewer]

Interesting post; thanks.

I have the same kit for my conical fermenter, but I immerse the pump in the water tank of my shelf cooler/chiller (functionally identical to the Grainfather Glycol Chiller, but about £450 less costly). The pump has been working fine so far but, when it first arrived, I immediately felt it wasn't particularly high quality; especially next to an equivalent SS BrewTech FTSS pump which is weightier, shifts more water and is also quieter.

Both pumps are 12vdc and I've always meant to run them side by side to see if the power consumption is similar, such that I could use the FTSS pump in the event the Grainfather pump were to give up the ghost, but not yet got around to it.

Luckily, my cat doesn't seem interested in going in the garage (my brewery) so that's at least one potential pump failure cause I don't have to worry about

Hi tiger Tim,
The Brewtech pump does look more business like. I am tempted to buy a GC 2 and second Conical fermenter, but then remind myself that I managed for 40 years with a plastic bucket and aquarium immersion heater.
My brewery is in my multifunctional garage and using the Grainfather fermenter gives me much better temperature control ( NW England not as cold as NE) and the design helps maintain good clean conditions.
What chiller are you using?

 

[tigertim]

What chiller are you using?

It's a "Welbilt Icecore 1" which started its life as a soft drink postmix chiller (similar to the Cornelius Maxi 110/210/310 beer line chillers which a lot of people use). It originally had four product coils in it, but I removed them so that it just has a tank of chilled water in which I now immerse the pump for the GF30.

I bought the Graincoat for the GF30 to insulate the external wall of the cooling band around the fermenter and I've cold crashed and lagered in the height of summer and it really doesn't struggle.

There are a fair number of these types of "shelf coolers" available on eBay for reasonable prices, and hacking them for home-brew use is relatively simple - there are quite a few related threads floating around on this forum!

 

[MashBag]

I use a submersible mains pond pump. I didn't bother with a chiller, the brew fridge did that.
But these do look v good.

 

[tigertim]

Funnily enough, the discussion in this thread has been on my mind over the last few days and I chose today to pull the chiller out of its corner, change its water and do a thorough check of the pump at the same time. It turns out there's some significant green algae growth floating around in there and it's also visible in the pump's impeller, having presumably been sucked in.

The instructions for the chiller are fairly specific about running it with only plain water in it, so I'm reluctant to try putting any biocide in there in case it reacts with the copper coil in any way. Maybe I should just make the thing more accessible and change the water more frequently!

 

[MashBag]

A tiny bit of copper sulphate would keep it clean.

 

[tigertim]