Im looking into my wish list for Christmas and wondered if anyone had suggestions for pumps. Im planning to do a tackle box pump for a bit. I want to used it for sparge and then to whirl pool after the boil. Does anyone know what the big gain is from the plastic to stainless manifold? Do I need that to run boiling water through the pump? Thanks
SS, brass (bronze?), and polysulfone - the three flavors of widely available heads - are equally suited to the task of pumping hot wort. I don't believe there is any meaningful performance advantage among the three. It's largely personal preference. That said, polysulfone, intuitively, has the advantage that it's more thermally inert than the other two, which suggests, perhaps, that it's more energy efficient (less temp drop when recirculating hot wort, meaning less energy required to maintain a boil). But this is probably not enough to be significant.
Big problem with the poly heads is that you can easily crossthread or strip the threads, so be careful with that. I always just recirculate the last 10-15 minutes of my boil to sanitize tubing and the pump before flameout. Recirculate hot oxy or pbw after the brew, and then a good water/starsan flush.
My real concern was over heating the plastic head. So you have one you send boiling wort through with no issues? Any preferred brand or store to get a good deal from?
The poly heads are rated to 250 degrees, so no worries with boiling wort. These applications (food grade, boiling temps) are what these pumps are designed for.
Yep, handles boiling wort no problem. As far as stores, March pumps do not sell direct, so I just shopped around. I think rebel brewing ended up being the best deal, and there are always pumps for sell on eBay. Chugger brand seems to be a popular alternative for a bit less money. There's another pump thread with some discussion of that.
If your building a pump in a toolbox like from the byo projects article, consider wiring in a plug next to the switch. This is what I did and I find it invaluable on brew day for plugging in lights, radios, power tools, cell phone chargers, etc. Here's a photo of mine And here's one of it in action:
mine was exactly like hopsandmalt until I build my brewstand. His tool box looks nicer than mine which needed some modifications to make it work, but I got it snug without too much hassle...so just be wary of that. Many hb shops now sell march pumps...also little giant and chugger make pumps that can handle boiling wort and are self contained, magnetic driven pumpheads (don't even think about getting something that is self-priming). I had a miss-threading my intake at first attempt of rigging up my polysulfone pump head and noticed it because I would lose prime when trying to pump above ~3ft. Luckily I was able to salvage the thread and works fine without any cavitation...so as Jebediah notes, be aware of that if you go with the poly head.
