Hopfan

Recipes 

I decided to make time to brew today and did an AG version of Cheesefood's Caramel Cream Ale. Everything was going so smoothly, I even commented to SWMBO that this was the smoothest brew session I ever had. So having said that, Murphy decided to screw with me a bit. During the sparge, I see the water slow to less than a drip through the sparge arm. The pump was still running but wasn't pushing much water through (It's the March high temp pump). I opened the valve all the way and still nothing so I switched to the other el cheapo pump that I control with a rheostat and all seems well again. Until that pump just died altogether. I ended up putting a funnel into my sparge input and hand pouring the sparge water for the next 1/2 hour. On the plus side, I got 91% efficiency and man does it smell great. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed because my yeast didn't seem to take off as well in the starter as it normally does. I usually read a good temp increase while it's on the stir plate but nothing this time.

So, any thoughts on the pump situation? The March has only been used 3 times and only with hot water. I opened up the pump head and the impeller spins freely. The motor runs smoothly???

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Hopfan

Recipes 

So, I was updating my brew log and found a slight finger problem when entering my numbers. So I really got 81% efficiency. Still very happy with that. Not too happy about the pump tho.

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When we find out how many bodies you buried in the basement, will we be more shocked or disappointed at the number?

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Yuri_Rage

Recipes 

March pumps are notoriously hard to prime. If you don't get all of the air out of the lines and fail to keep the pump lower than the input liquid level, it can easily stall.

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BierMuncher

Recipes 

The stainless steel sauce pan I use to batch sparge never stalls....

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Hopfan

Recipes 

Yeah, but then again, you don't have to scramble mid-sparge to rig up an alternate way to do things, and your way sounds way too easy, and...ah, screw it.

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When we find out how many bodies you buried in the basement, will we be more shocked or disappointed at the number?

Zip ties are the duct tape of the 21st century

Bad Dog Brewing
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Hopfan

Recipes 

Think it would help to mount the pump sideways with the input & output in a vertical position to assist the air bubbles out of the head?

__________________
When we find out how many bodies you buried in the basement, will we be more shocked or disappointed at the number?

Zip ties are the duct tape of the 21st century

Bad Dog Brewing
Sit...Stay