Sunday, April 25, 2010

Homebrew Digest #5677 (April 25, 2010)

HOMEBREW Digest #5677 Sun 25 April 2010


FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Re: air driven diaphragm pump for filling (Fred L Johnson)
Re: air driven diaphragm pump for filling ("Kevin O'Rourke")
Refrigerator Current Demand (Fred L Johnson)


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Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:32:42 -0400
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: air driven diaphragm pump for filling

Matt asks if an air-driven diaphragm pump would be a good choice
for filling/transferring from a vessel that is either too heavy to be
moved or cannot be pressurized. I haven't used the diaphragm
pumps for such an application, but I have used peristaltic roller
pumps (mostly Masterflex) and can recommend them. However, if
one closes off the outlet while the pump is running, there will be
an increase in pressure in the tubing between the roller head and
the tubing outlet, depending on how fast the pump is running.
One might consider using a foot switch to temporarily turn the
pump off between bottles.

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA

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Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:45:44 -0500
From: "Kevin O'Rourke" <korourke3 at wi.rr.com>
Subject: Re: air driven diaphragm pump for filling


> Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:15:30 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: air driven diaphragm pump for filling
>
> I had an idea for bottling beer from vessels that are
> too heavy to move and can't be pressurized (such as a
> wine demijohn). I believe little air-driven diaphragm
> pumps (such as Grainger Item 2ERY7) can provide beer
> flow at constant pressure, and have no problem when a
> valve is shut on their outlet. They are also self
> priming.

That's a nice little Warren-Rupp pump. Good quality manufacturer.

> Suppose we connect the pump's inlet a racking cane
> in our beer vessel, and connect the outlet to a filling
> apparatus (perhaps as simple as a spring-type filling
> wand). Can we now just turn on the pump and start
> filling bottles to our heart's content? It seems that
> connecting a pump in this way is almost equivalent to
> putting constant top pressure on the beer vessel.
>
> The one problem I can think of offhand is that the pump
> may not work at sufficiently low pressures (and thus
> dispense beer way too fast). But this could probably be
> solved by adding some friction or choke to the outlet.

Back pressure on the pump "friction or choke to the outlet" will slow the
pump discharge. Another option for slowing the pump down is adding a needle
valve at the air inlet. This way you can still get good PSI from your
compressor to run the pump but control the SCFM (volume) of air which wil
slow the pump down. The thing to remember about these pumps is that they
will basically generate as much pressure as they are given. You feed it
80PSI off a compressor the pump will stall at 79PSI. This is good cause you
can shut off the flow without damaging the pump. However you still have
pressure trapped behind the discarge valve and the pump because of the check
valves in the pump.

> The other issue is that you need a nice air compressor.
> Beyond that, though, am I missing any major obstacles?

Another thing to consider is that a AOD pump will delivered a pulsating
flow. As the diaphragm moves you basically get slugs of liquid. These can
be lessened buy installing a pulsation dampner but you can never fully
remove the pulses.

Also a typical inexpensive AOD pump is very difficult to get CLEAN much less
SANITIZE. That particular pump will be near impossible to clean without
disassembly and believe me putting them back together correctly can be
difficult if you've never done it before. They really don't like to me
diassembled often. It's hard on the elastomers in the pumps.
We use very expensive specially designed sanitary versions. They are
available down to 1" sizes that meet FDA requirements but man are they
expensive. $4,000 and up.

A good resource is
http://www.wildenpump.com/pugs/ENGLISH_PUG_II_Complete_Web.pdf A different
manufacturer but they have a really good guide. Probably over kill for most
people but the installation section is a good overview. Hope that helps.

KO

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Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:32:42 -0400
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Refrigerator Current Demand

I'm not very knowledgeable about electric appliances, so my question is
about use of a refrigerator as a temperature-controlled fermentation
chamber.

I have equipped a refrigerator with an external temperature controller
(Ranco) that turns the power on and off to the refrigerator to maintain
fermentation temperature. I noticed that every time the refrigerator
(located in the crawl space of my home) comes on the lights in my kitchen
(probably on same circuit) dim for a fraction of a second. I never noticed
this when I was using an old chest freezer for the same purpose in the same
location. Why is this happening? Am I risking damage to the house circuit?
To the refrigerator?

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5677, 04/25/10
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