Is this pump any good?

[will_raymo2000]

I have just acquired an old water chiller/carbonator from work. It has a large tank which I presume was filled with water. A compressor sits underneath and has a coil at the bottom of this tank which presumably is meant to cool the tank of water. Above this cooling coil is a larger coil through which water is pumped and then out to the outlet nozzle.

The pump in question is a Shurflo 895-951-269 however the only info I can find on this pump is its ROHS compliance certificate and datasheets for other models in the series. Its a Diaphragm pump, the diaphragm is made from Santoprene and the valves are EPDM. The datasheet i'm looking at is here: http://www.pumpagents.com/pdf/ShurfloPu ... 11-269.pdf . It also appears to be rated up to 82*C which would suit sparging liquid and wort nicely. The flowrate written on my pump is 1.3 US GPM and has a pressure max/head max of 69PSI/70.4metres! And a pressure bypass of 100psi.


As it has only been used to pump water for drinking I assume its all foodsafe but I want to get some opinions from people before diving in to using it!

 

[unclepumble]

It should be ok to use, for sparging or herms rims system. I think you would have to use a balance valve to control flow though.

EDPM is ok for foodsafe
santoprene is foodsafe dishwasher safe etc etc

so it will be ok to use.


UP

 

[will_raymo2000]

Just the answer I wanted to hear! I shall have to run some fairly aggressive oxy through this as its got a fair amount of scale/crud on it.

Will post back with the results of my experiments. Cheers Unc!

 

[Vossy1]

Shurflo pumps are predominantly used on caravans/motorhomes and canal boats for hot and cold water supplies and are rated as food safe as UP has already said. A lot are kitted out as demand pumps and rely on pressure drops to switch on...I always thought this could be of use in the brewery but never got round to going any further with the idea :hmm:

 

[will_raymo2000]

The pump is pretty quick. Well good enough for brewing uses anyway!

Just another quick question... The water chiller this pump comes from has a 10-15 litre tank with an integrated cooling coil around the bottom 3rd of the tank. I have tested this and the coil with no water in the tank frosts up and gets down to roughly -5 to -8*C. There is another stainless steel coil that takes up the rest of the tank... My thoughts - Would it be possible to fill this tank with salt water (so as to have it below freezing without actually freezing) and then pump wort through the secondary coil sat within this tank? Am I going to notice a significant difference from my current immersion coil with tap water?

I suppose the other option would be to pump this super cooled salt water through the immersion cooler that I have at the moment but this might be a little corrosive for copper...


Any thoughts? Thanks!