Brew Pumps

[Fifthpinned06]

How are ya fellas?!!

got a question for all you AG gurus out there, I'm currently in the process of building my brew rig and was thinking about going gravity from HLT to mash tun then using a march pump to transfer from mash tun to Keggle. I know I will not have a problem when transferring the majority of the wort but what about when sparging will the pump have enough suction?? I mean from the amount of water being gravity fed through a sprinkler nozzle to the amount the pump can suck.

or should I consider re-designing my rig?

any help would be awesome
cheers

 

[razz]

It's no biggy, just make sure you have the pump outlet governed back so the flow out of the mash tun is the same as the flow coming in from the HLT.

 

[kelbygreen]

ok when you sparge its not going gang busters as from what your saying you will be fly sparging. the pump will pump faster then you can gravity feed the mash tun. but you dont want to go to fast or you will get a compact grain bed (stuck sparge) or you will get channeling (the grain forms cracks or if the manifold is not set up properly it will go down the side of the tun) you want the fresh water to slowly get drawn threw the whole bed to extract the sugar not find the easiest path and just leave all that sugary goodness behind

Edit: a fly sparge can take upto a hour so your ball valve is usually just cracked and throttling the pump back same with your HLT will be throttled back

 

[Fifthpinned06]

righto so if I govern the discharge back the sparge water will have the time to get through the grain slowly and excess pressure wont hurt the pump?

 

[Fifthpinned06]

ahh yeah i'm pickin up what your putting down