Pumping Oxyclean through March Pump

I tried my pilot run using my new Counter Top Brutus rig and ran into a problem. When I tried running Oxyclean through it the March pump wouldn't circulate it properly. It appears that it foamed up in the pump and the resulting foam was dense enough not to allow the pump to fill with fluid, and the foam wasn't dense enough to actually pump. I actually had to take the pump head off to clear it. Has anyone else had this kind of problem, and were you able to correct it without disconnecting hoses?

Huh, I've never had a problem with oxy foaming or priming through the pump. What about getting it running with just water and then adding the oxy?

sound like a priming issue. You need to suck those bubbles out of the head. Sounds ghey I know but that'll fix it right up.

Nope. I circulate a hot water + Oxyclean with my pump regularly and have had no problems with priming or foaming. I do have an air bleed valve installed which makes priming a no brainer. Unless you have an air leak somewhere, there shouldn't be any foaming in the pump or lines.

Post up a pic of your bleeding arrangement. I need to do something and need ideas on how to go about it. Thanks.

Irrenarzt said:

sound like a priming issue

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I agree that it's a priming issue. I tried lowering the pump to get more pressure to the head but it didn't work.

jkarp said:

What about getting it running with just water and then adding the oxy?

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Yeah, I'll give that a try. I initially thought that I had a tubing crimp in my chiller and I ended up pulling the pump out of the bucket and using another chiller that I had. I'll need to take a closer look at the chiller to see if it's crimped or if I was initially having the foaming problem. When you start the pump with Oxy do you have the valve on the output wide open? I originally didn't do that and am wondering if the foam was created in the pump due to the pump churning the Oxy solution. I cleared the pump head once and turned the pump on without having the outlet valve all the way open and it happened again.

Irrenarzt said:

Post up a pic of your bleeding arrangement. I need to do something and need ideas on how to go about it. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Here ya go:



You can see the bleed valve behind the gate valve with the green handle. It's just a 1/4" ball valve with a NPT x Barb elbow attached. The bleed valve is also handy for grabbing wort samples when using the pump on my RIMS. The dial is a vacuum gauge I use to monitor the suction applied to the mash tun outlet.