March Pump Alternatives?

Finally getting my single teir completely done and I've realized that the pumps I was going to use aren't going to work. I was able to get a few potable water circulators for free and was told they would have no problem with the gallons per minutes that I was looking for. Unfortunately, they don't put out anywhere near the GPM I need and just bearly trickle water.

I am running a shiron chill plate between my HLT and mash tun and was planning on having one pump continuously curculate my mash (which I think the standard March pump would be perfect for) and then have another PID controlled pump that circulates hot water from the HLT through the plate chiller to add heat to the MT. For that pump, I would like to find something that has a lot higher GPM than the March.

Anyone know of any alternatives that have been used successfully?

Are you sure that you want to run mash water through a plate chiller?

Husks, grains, debris moving through that chiller?

Why control the shirron pump with a PID? Why not control the temp of the water going through the plate chiller (heater) with a PID or something similar and run the pump continuously?

Id have to say there is nothing like a March pump... food safe, high temp, magnetic impeller. I have not seen anyone find anything with the required properties for circulating hot water/wort other than the March pump.

Why are you opposed to the March pump?

I was going to say, the only real alternative to the march pump is gravity.

Gravity, yep... forgot that one. Though on your single tier, that will be a problem

A friend of mine uses Shurflo RV pumps. They have a decent GPM, although not as much as a March and they are self priming. The problem is they are 12VDC pumps and require 7-10A so it's not like you're going to run them off of a PC power supply. He uses a high-end high-current starter/charger that he has.

I'm not really opposed to the March pump, I'm just thinking that if I could find another pump that has a higher GPM, I might want to grab one.

I'm not really worried about running my mash through a chiller. I have a false bottom on top of a manifold wrapped in a paint strainer bag. I can't imagine getting a lot of husks, etc. stuck in the pump or chiller.

My main reason for wanting more GPM is the way I'm planning on operating the whole thing (and how the damn thing is already plumbed and set up). I want to bring my HLT up to my dough-in temp and then pump the hot water into the MT, dough-in and then jack my HLT up a bit higher so that it's able to raise the MT temp when needed via a PID controlled pump and the plate chiller.

I'm nervous about the March pump taking 15 minutes to move 15-20 gallons from the HLT to the MT. Once in, I don't need (actually don't WANT) a lot of GPM when circulating the mash so I'm not worried about the March being a problem for that.

Cape Brewing said:

I'm not really worried about running my mash through a chiller. I have a false bottom on top of a manifold wrapped in a paint strainer bag. I can't imagine getting a lot of husks, etc. stuck in the pump or chiller.

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Sounds good in theory, but from experience, a plate chiller acts like a filter and catches everything. It's fine for post boil (when using hop bags), but I tried it as a heat exchanged for mashes and gave up bcs it would clog fairly quickly, even when using a SS braid. You may get lucky, but it really really sucks to have it clog halfway through chilling bcs some husks and stuff were in there from the mash.

Pump manufacture spec sheets show ideal high GPM/GPH numbers as they are running the pump with in and out lines or tubing short as possible plus as large in diameter as the pump inlet and outlet connection points to prevent any restrictions and lower GPM/GPH numbers without any head pressure. High as possible numbers sell pumps vs going to a different manufacture or a larger pump by same manufacture. In your case your adding the chiller a rather large restriction by design, longer tubing that adds up in flow resistance as the longer they are the more resistance. The number of bends and fittings, plus your pump location on the brewing rig. By this with the pump down low as I have seen them placed on a leg near the ground you've added more head preasure on the pump that will reduce your GPM/GPH numbers. Notice many pump manufactures and brewing systems rate their flows at GPH, wow big numbers vs GPM, GPS or literes per minute. I would have the pump mounted as high as you can but below the lowest keggle or pot bottom to reduce the head pressure on the pump hence the maximum GPM/GPH flow that pump will put out by its design.

bakins said:

Sounds good in theory, but from experience, a plate chiller acts like a filter and catches everything. It's fine for post boil (when using hop bags), but I tried it as a heat exchanged for mashes and gave up bcs it would clog fairly quickly, even when using a SS braid. You may get lucky, but it really really sucks to have it clog halfway through chilling bcs some husks and stuff were in there from the mash.

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Good to know... Thanks. Wish I had known that before building what I have already. Just because I already have the rig 99.5% built at this point (I literally just have to swap out the pumps and I'm done), I'm going to give it shot and see what happens. I'll be bummed out of the chill plate ends up clogging. Worst case scenario maybe I'll put some sort of countrer flow chiller in it's place as the heat exchanger and use the shiron for something else (although I have a 30 plate chiller to use as an actual chiller at the back-end of the rig).

Other than March pumps the only real choice for pumping volume under pressure is a perlastic(sp?) pump. They can be expensive but offer advantages over the march pump such as pressure and self priming. One adequate for our purposes would cost double what a March 809 does. hmmm...... 1 perlastic, or 2 march? Easy choice for this single tier brewer.

beerthirty said:

a peristaltic pump.

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Fixed that for ya.

Cape Brewing said:

Good to know... Thanks. Wish I had known that before building what I have already. Just because I already have the rig 99.5% built at this point (I literally just have to swap out the pumps and I'm done), I'm going to give it shot and see what happens. I'll be bummed out of the chill plate ends up clogging. Worst case scenario maybe I'll put some sort of countrer flow chiller in it's place as the heat exchanger and use the shiron for something else (although I have a 30 plate chiller to use as an actual chiller at the back-end of the rig).

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Why would you replace your "plate heater" with a counterflow heater? You seem determined to pump hot water OUT of your HLT and through a heat exchanger. This is really inefficient and will make hitting your temps that much harder because of the heat you are losing between the HLT and the "heater".
The most efficient and most direct way to heat your wort in what ammounts to a HERMS system, is to have the heat exchanger placed directly in the heating meduim, meaning the HLT. Anything else seems more complicated and much less efficient IMHO. Is there a good reason why you are married to this idea of pumping hot water out of the HLT to heat your mash?

The Pol said:

Why would you replace your "plate heater" with a counterflow heater? You seem determined to pump hot water OUT of your HLT and through a heat exchanger. This is really inefficient and will make hitting your temps that much harder because of the heat you are losing between the HLT and the "heater".
The most efficient and most direct way to heat your wort in what ammounts to a HERMS system, is to have the heat exchanger placed directly in the heating meduim, meaning the HLT. Anything else seems more complicated and much less efficient IMHO. Is there a good reason why you are married to this idea of pumping hot water out of the HLT to heat your mash?

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- Heat water in my HLT to dough-in temp via a propane burner under my HLT
- Once my dough-in temp is hit (plus a degree or two depending on what kind of heat loss I might get in transfer from HLT to MT) I pump the desired volume of water into the MT.
- The MT is a 20 gallon pot mounted inside a 30 gallon pot and spray foam insulated in between with an insulated lid as well.
- Add my grains.
- Flip a switch and have my MT continuously and very slowly recirc through one side of the chiller and back into the MT .
- If/When my MT drops below my desired mash temp, a PID controlled pump clicks on and pumps hot water (that's been heated well above my mash temp) through the other side of the chiller/counter flow/whatever I use for a heat exchanger, to nudge the temp back up.

OVer the course of an hour, given how well the MT is insulated and the volume of water I'm going to have, I can't imagine the heat exhanger is going to have to nudge the temp more than two or three times in an hour. If I'm doing any step mashing... then I'm just going to have to see how efficient the heat exchanger is... and given how quickly then tend to chill, my hope was stepping up wasn't going to be a long process, especially since once I've added my grains, I can jack the HLT up to near-boiling.

I've wanted to do the heat exchanger simply so I would never really be applying any direct heat right onto my mash. yeah obviously the heat exchanger wil bedoind that but not to the extent a direct hat source would. I'm sacrificing a bit of efficiency (to what degree i still unknown) in order to avoid any possiblr scorching (which may bot be a problem to begin with)... maybe it's not necessary... maybe it's a dumb idea, but that's how it's benn built up until this point and I'm so close that I'm at least going to try everything to see how it works.

Oh.. sorry... and I had mentioned replacing the chill plate with a counterflow chiller only because someone had mentioned that the chill plate will clog really easily. My assumption was that a counterflow chiller would probably give me a least decent efficiency in transferring heat and a much smaller risk of clogging.

You are building a HERMS system... you cannot scorch wort in a HERMS system. There is no direct contact between the wort and the heat source (flame or element). The hottest your heating meduim will ever become is 205F or so, then it will boil off, still not hot enough to scorch wort.

It is generally recommended when using a RIMS or HERMS system NOT to heat the wort traveling through the heater or heat exchanger ABOVE the target mash temp. Meaning if you are heating your mash with HLT water that is ABOVE your mash target temp, you are now running wort at say 152F OUT of the MLT, into a heat exchanger that is 165F... sending 160-165F wort back INTO your MLT... you dont want to do that.

When you do that, there is no good placement for your PID temp probe. If it is in the MLT outlet, the mash will be a steaming 160F by the time it filters down to the temp probe at the outlet. If it is at the INLET to the MLT, where you are returning your wort to the MLT, the pump will turn off immediately because it will see 160F (or whatever) immediately.

So you're suggestion is to simply add something like a coil (immersion chiller) right into the HLT, and keep the HLT at my desired mash temp while constantly recirc'ing my mash through that?

That does sound a lot easier

That is what I am suggesting... that is what I have done, for the following reasons:

NO temp stratification in the mash... it is constanly flowing
NO danger of scorching wort with direct fired mash
NO danger of heating the mash water above the desired MLT temp
NO lag time if the mash drops below the set temp... it will never deviate from the set temp.

I have had incredible results with my system. There is a temp differential between the HLT and MLT temp... mine is 3F. You lose a little temp in the pump and transfer tubing. Each system will have a slightly different temp differential.

There are a couple HBTers that have copied my system and have had nothing but great results. If you are trying to maintain temps or ramp up, there is no need to have the pumps turn on and off, simply control the temp of the HLT water. This is why I converted my system to all electric, it is much easier to control temps with electricity and elements than it is with gas. It is also less costly than buying propane.

Cool... yeah... zero chance I'm converting to electric at this point. I can stomach having an extra shiron sitting around and reworking the plumbing between my HLT and MT but I ain't ripping out the pilot lights, PID controlled gas valves, etc.

That's really helpful though. WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS A FEW MONTHS AGO!?!? (joking).

The good thing is once my AG rig is done, I won't need my immersion chiller so that's an easy piece I can canabalize for what we've talked about. Also, give how the flow would work, I think that answer the question I started this thread with... and that is I won't need anything more than the March pump.

That works.

Great... now I have MORE work to do. Some day this freakin' thing is going to actually make beer. I swear it.

I told the entire board this months ago... when I built mine! I have a couple LONG threads about it and pics posted.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/new-10-gallon-herms-pics-76773/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/new-herms-first-run-pics-coming-77394/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/bling-bling-electric-herms-conversion-93217/

OH, if you have PIDs and GAS VALVES, then you are set with temp control, never mind the electric.

Just run from the MLT outlet to the pump, then up through the 1/2" (that is what I use) coil in the HLT, then back into the MLT. You will be able to maintain your desired temp within .5F or so for as long as you want to mash.

For step mashing (heffes for me) I heat my strike water to 140F or so (need about 10F of that to preheat the MLT anyway) giving me a strike temp of 130F allowing me to rest at 122F.
During the 122F step I do NOT recirculate, but I heat my HLT to 156F. When the 122F step is done (15-20min) I start the recirc through the coil in the HLT to heat my mash up to 153F (3F differential remember)... then let it run and run and run.
When I mash out, the pump stays on and I turn my temp control in the HLT to 175F. Let it recirculate for 15-20 mins... then stop, swap some QDs and start my sparge with the 175F water from the HLT.

The Pol, maybe I missed it. What diameter and length tubing do you use for the heat exchanger in your HLT?

It is 25' ft 1/2" copper tubing... everything on my rig is 1/2"

Cool... see... now I'm really glad I asked because now, running it the way you suggested (which is a lot smarter), I can save myself an extra pump. I have a 25' 1/2 immersion chiller I can use as a heat exchanger (I'm all 1/2 as well).

I got all sorts of gift certificates for xmas so my pumps will be here this week. All I have to do is some quick re-plumbing and I'm done.

The PID, gas valves and all of my solenoids are already in.

Hey, sorry I messed up your plans with my ideas. No one likes re-rigging a rig... but I think you will be happier with how it performs. I try to help those that I can, some slip through the cracks

The Pol said:

During the 122F step I do NOT recircualte, but I heat my MLT to 156F. When the 122F step is done (15-20min) I start the recirc through the coil in the HLT to heat my mash up to 153F (3F differential remember)...

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I am so confused here on your above statements; "During the 122F step I do NOT recircualate, but I heat my MLT to 156F. When the 122F step is done(15-20min) I start the recirc thru the coil in the HLT to heat my mash up to 153F (3F differential remember)...[/QUOTE]

"recircualate"? you mean recirculate?

"During the 122F step I do NOT recirsualate, but I heat my MLT to 156F"
Why would you heat the MLT to "156F" during the "122F step"?, "step is done (15-20min)"

Confused on your above statements please clarify?

I think his point was when he's stepping up, he'll shut down the recirculating pump and let the MT rest at 122... it might lose a degree but it should be fairly stable, while he jacks up the HLT to 156... Once at 156, he'll click the pump back on, recirculating the mash through the coil in the HLT, bringing the mash up to the next step.

And Pol, I'm not too worried about re-tooling at this point. It's been so freakin' long trying to get this thing up and running, a little while longer isn't going to matter. And this is a better way to do it. The only thing I'm concerned about is bringing my MT up to initial temp. I might have to add another burner so I can bring both my HLT and MT up to temp, dough-in and then kill the MT burner and just recirc like we were talking about. If not, it's going to take me 4 hours to bring all of that water up to temp.

The nice thing is I am pretty positive my father (who is a licensed "gas guy") is going to hard plumb the rig into my house's nat. gas line in the next week or so in order to goose up my BTU's as opposed to propane. He can also get his hands on much higher quality burners than the ones he grabbed and modified for propane. If we're going through all of that, slapping another burner into things wouldn't be a problem.

It never ends....

Sorry, LONG days of flying this week.

I start my rest in the MLT at 122F... during that time I continue to heat my HLT to 156F. After the 122F rest is complete in the MLT, I then start the recirc through the HERMS and bring the MLT up to 153F.

It was a typo... at least Cape understood what I was saying. Thanks bro.

I am finishing up my E-keggle conversion and control panel wiring tomorrow. It is nearly complete, only about (4) more connections to make. So far, so great, plugged it in a few times to check connections, voltage and such. Cant wait to run a couple test runs and get back to brewing! I still have (2) empty kegs to fill!

The Pol said:

... sending 160-165F wort back INTO your MLT... you dont want to do that.

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The Pol was bringing up the point that you don't want to scorch your wort by heating it.

There are other concerns about direct heating your wort to heat your mash tun. You can denature enzymes with higher temperatures. If you are heating up the wort to 168 to send back into your mash tun, you've just essentially done a Mash Out on wort passing through the heating loop.

jason.mundy said:

The Pol was bringing up the point that you don't want to scorch your wort by heating it.

There are other concerns about direct heating your wort to heat your mash tun. You can denature enzymes with higher temperatures. If you are heating up the wort to 168 to send back into your mash tun, you've just essentially done a Mash Out on wort passing through the heating loop.

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There's no need or reason to heat the circulating wort to 168 F at each pass when direct firing a MT. I use a direct fired RIMS and only heat the recirculating wort a few degrees above the target temp when ramping up. The exception would be for a mash out when you can apply heat at a higher rate when the conversion is done. The trick is to circulate at the highest flow rate possible while keeping the burner flame relatively low. This can be tricky at first, but with some experience it's not difficult to master.

The Pol said:

Sorry, LONG days of flying this week.!

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Flying? Circle City? We may very well be neighbors. If so, I need to tap into your experience and wisdom while I'm building my brewing setup!