Help me understand using a pump and build a stand

OK, I understand what a pump does, lets get that out of the way.
I know there is a certain logic to brewing with a pump, that is what I am not familiar with.

I currently heat strike water in the keggle, bucket pour into the cooler tun, drain the runnings into a 5 gallon bucket and heat sparge water and bucket pour in to the mash tun. I usually do a double sparge.

With one pump, what is the optimal setup and usage of my current system? I have attached a drawing of my current setup, showing the height of items. I can change the height of the table, but like the storage under. I also have a 7 gallon turkey fryer setup I used to use for small BIAB batches I could use for strike water if needed.

Thanks much
Lakedawgs

I don't use a pump, so maybe my thinking is not that helpful here, but here it is.

I understand pumps are usually used for one of two purposes -- transferring liquid between containers or recirculating liquid within a container. Since you are using a cooler mash tun, I don't think you will want to use it for recirculating the mash because you would have to drill a hole in the cooler, which could lead to heat loss. You could use the pump to transfer that hot water from the keggle to the mash tun. That would mean you would not need to pick up the keggle while it has hot liquid in it and you could fly sparge if you wanted to. But, there is not really a need for a pump because you could do the same thing by changing your set up so that your Keggle is higher than the mash tun and use gravity.

I would rather not use a gravity setup because I don't want the vessels any higher than the are now, if possible. $$$$ for the pump aside, if I can benefit more from a gravity setup I will, but I would rather not go that route.

lakedawgs said:

I would rather not use a gravity setup because I don't want the vessels any higher than the are now, if possible. $$$$ for the pump aside, if I can benefit more from a gravity setup I will, but I would rather not go that route.

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Then I think you might want to use the pump for transferring the liquid. I assume you have a ball valve on the Keggle? If so, you would run a hose from that to the pump's "in" valve and run a hose from the pump's out valve to the top of the mash tun. Open the ball valve, crank up the pump, and the hot water will transfer to the mash tun.

I'm with you on all that. I am looking for pump users to weigh in on the heights of the different vessels and how batch sparging is properly performed with a pump.
Thanks

double duty: pump hot water from your keggle HLT to mash tun for mash & sparge.

collect runnings in another vessel with ball-valve

pump wort from that vessel back up to your keggle and boil

you'd have to switch hoses, but would be the way I would do it

Take a look at PsychoBrew.com's info section. It has flowcharts showing the hook ups for their systems, which are all single level systems. You can just ignore the recirculating part. Here's a link: http://www.psychobrewllc.com/pages/info.html. I'm hoping to build a single level system one day, so I have been researching it and found these rather helpful. It obviously does not tell you the exact settings for flow rate for a sparge, but I'm sure someone will weigh in.

I LIKE that double duty HLT/BK idea. This may keep me from needing to drill one of my pots and save some $$.

OP, I asked this question slightly less eloquently a month ago and got some good as well as disparaging feedback, but what I gathered as most important is to make sure you consider the myriad accessories you are going to need at each vessel. Bobby M on pg 2 describes the amount of hardware I will need to acquire to set it all up.

*For connections, I may start cheap and use simple plastic worm clips like these.
*a bunch of tubing,
*some bigger diameter hose barbs (and probably SS too)
*a ball valve after the pump,
*a dip tube
*if I get a SS ball valve for the pump, hell, I may need to upgrade the other brass ones I have in my BK and MT...
*I use an IC, so I may get some more copper to do a whirlpool while chilling.

GrogNerd said:

double duty: pump hot water from your keggle HLT to mash tun for mash & sparge.

collect runnings in another vessel with ball-valve

pump wort from that vessel back up to your keggle and boil

you'd have to switch hoses, but would be the way I would do it

View attachment 98054

Click to expand...

I liked this idea for a minute but wouldn't you still need a ball valve on the bucket? I guess you could use a bottling bucket but that's not a very high flow valve...

GrogNerd said:

double duty: pump hot water from your keggle HLT to mash tun for mash & sparge.

collect runnings in another vessel with ball-valve

pump wort from that vessel back up to your keggle and boil

you'd have to switch hoses, but would be the way I would do it

View attachment 98054

Click to expand...

natewv said:

I liked this idea for a minute but wouldn't you still need a ball valve on the bucket? I guess you could use a bottling bucket but that's not a very high flow valve...

Click to expand...

I did specify that you would need a ball-valve on the "bucket"

unless you use it as a scavenger pump, suck it directly out of the bucket

Exactly as GrogNerd has described, but I would also raise the pump up to just under the stand so that the hose lengths are a little shorter, and the pump is easier to access.
You'll need a valve at the output side of the pump, plus a way to disconnect and stop flow (a valve and coupler) at each of the vessels.
Then, down the road, you can add a RMS HERMS tube.

Good stuff, thanks,
I have read up more on this and I will be doing this in a month or tow. Just built a small brewstand with a future pump in mind.
Something I don't really get. I batch sparge. When I take my first (or second) runnings, do I have a pump hooked up to the outflow on my mashtun? I would not think I would want to draw the wort out of the tun in fear of causing a stuck mash. Do I just let it flow out as normal and then introduce new hot sparge water to the tun with the pump?

lakedawgs said:

Good stuff, thanks,
I have read up more on this and I will be doing this in a month or tow. Just built a small brewstand with a future pump in mind.
Something I don't really get. I batch sparge. When I take my first (or second) runnings, do I have a pump hooked up to the outflow on my mashtun? I would not think I would want to draw the wort out of the tun in fear of causing a stuck mash. Do I just let it flow out as normal and then introduce new hot sparge water to the tun with the pump?

Click to expand...

I would think that even with batch sparging, you wouldn't want to suck the wort out of the MLT with a pump. plus with the one pump, it's in use pumping sparge water from the HLT

Sucking the wort out of the MT can cause a stuck mash, but if you're mashing thin enough and use rice hulls for sticky mashes, you can recirculate (vorlauf) out of a cooler mash tun in most cases. I just did it yesterday with a 38.8% wheat all grain recipe. In terms of efficiency, I'd rather be gravity draining out of my mash tun, but I just don't want my cooler up that high right now so I gravity drain my HLT and pump my MT.

In terms of design, if you're going to go through the trouble of having a pump then I'd highly recommend having either your mash tun or your HLT above your kettle height in a gravity setup. Reason being that you want a setup where you never have to physically move a vessel with liquid in it (otherwise why bother with a pump?). You either want a gravity drain from HLT to MT or from MT to kettle and use the pump to cover the third segment of the operation. Easiest way is to keep two flat and one above. I chose to keep the HLT above because I never need to really look in it unless I'm filling (and that's only until I finally install my sight glass).

I have been thinking about it for a month or two, and when I get around to buying a couple weldless bulkheads/dip tubes and 3 SS ball valves this is my plan:

I have 2 turkey fryer burners and a rectangular cooler MT. I'm going to put a burner and the HLT on a picnic table, pump to the MT beside it. Batch sparge and gravity drain to my BK on a burner on the ground. Use my pump to recirculate the wort during chilling (will this sanitize it??), and then pump to my fermenter.

Simple enough, am I missing anything?

lakedawgs said:

Good stuff, thanks,
I have read up more on this and I will be doing this in a month or tow. Just built a small brewstand with a future pump in mind.
Something I don't really get. I batch sparge. When I take my first (or second) runnings, do I have a pump hooked up to the outflow on my mashtun? I would not think I would want to draw the wort out of the tun in fear of causing a stuck mash. Do I just let it flow out as normal and then introduce new hot sparge water to the tun with the pump?

Click to expand...

Use the valve on the output side of the pump to throttle the flow, and pump directly to your BK.