Fly Sparge with pump on 2 tier issues

So i have a two tier pump, HLT and MLT on top, boil kettle on bottom. I use my pump to sparge and gravity drain to kettle... i've had an issue lately where when i cut back my valve on the pump going to the MLT to a slow trickle after a few minutes the pump stops pumping the water. This sucks because its hard for me to walk away during fly sparging and get everything else cleaned/prepped, etc.

Is it just a case that i'm sparging too slow? I'm just laying a hose on top of the water on the grain bed and running slow from that... and i dont have a lot of confidence in trying to match the input and output. I was thinking of building a ring out of copper tubing to use instead. I'm also going to try to eliminate some extra tubing i have running from the pump outlet to my MLT.

Thats and easy one. When you are slowing the output of your pump to a trickle air is getting back into the pump from the output and causing you to loose prime. You need one of these on the output of your pump.






They are dual auto vents. They are available from Grainger. They automatically bleed off any air that would cause your pump to loose prime. Beerthirty came up with the idea and the image above is of his brewery. He puts one on the input of the pump and one on the output of the pump so it is easier to prime and stays primed.

Flyer I have the same type of setup and I never loose my prime while sparging, but sometimes during the whirlpool I do. I am going to look into these dual auto vents.

thanks for the reply! if it is indeed that easy then this is the quickest question/answer i've had.

Brew... do you just sparge with a tube? I'm guessing that with a slow sparge just out of tubing that is where the air is coming in, and i guess switching to a copper circle may have fixed my issue without me knowing the real cause of it. Just hoping i didnt do any damage to the pump (but did have a few dry grain beds)

I have a manifold built that is above my grain bed but is inside the cooler when the lid is shut. It has about six tubes that cover the whole cooler, never a problem when I start sparging it is a problem sometime getting it to prime or during the whirlpool.

that is my setup, never had a prime issue... haven't used it to whirlpool yet either, gonna try the vents

Is your pump lower than hlt/mlt? Is your valve for controlling the flow on the output side of your pump? If both of these are true, I don't see how you could be getting air in your pump as long as it is properly primed.

yes and yes

Sawdustguy said:

Thats and easy one. When you are slowing the output of your pump to a trickle air is getting back into the pump from the output and causing you to loose prime. You need one of these on the output of your pump.

They are dual auto vents. They are available from Grainger. They automatically bleed off any air that would cause your pump to loose prime. Beerthirty came up with the idea and the image above is of his brewery. He puts one on the input of the pump and one on the output of the pump so it is easier to prime and stays primed.

Click to expand...

How do you clean these I would think some liquid would get in side ?
Op do you have a bleed valve on your out going side of your pump ?

lehr said:

How do you clean these I would think some liquid would get in side ?
Op do you have a bleed valve on your out going side of your pump ?

Click to expand...

Good question, I will have to defer to Beerthirty. I don't have trouble with my pumps but if I did I would install these as I understand they work great.

i do not, and apparently i wasn't properly priming it in the first place