March 809 Setup & A Lot Of Questions

#1) I hate that you have to prime the damn thing. Priming is a pain in the ass. I'm going to swap ball valves for ones ball valves with a waste port on them (or maybe just a spigot) to try and get rid of the air. The good thing is when it's flowing, it's got a pretty high flow rate.

#2) I have quick disconnect hoses. I couldn't figure out a way not to make a mess when swapping the hoses between pots/inlets/etc. The only thing I can think of is to add a spigot and draw off the excess liquid that way - which could double as the air release valve.

#3) I struggling with my flow order. At first I though I could have a system where I don't have to swap tubes with 2 feeds to the inlet on the pump and 2 feeds going out of the pump. Here's my flow order:

Inlet (Pull From) Outlet (Send To)
Step 1 HLT Sparge Arm MLT
Step 2 MLT Sparge Arm MLT
Step 3 MLT BK
Step 4 BK -> CHILLER -> FERMENTER
Step 5 FERMENTER -> FILTER -> KEG

It get's tricky around step 4 & 5, because up to that point, I could do 2 ball valves on the inlet and 2 on the outlet. I think the easiest thing to do would be to get another damn pump The second pump could just use 2 quick disconnects...but I'm really trying not to spend another $200 between pumps and fittings...

We're talking about a labyrinth of ball valves to run this through 1 pump! Any ideas?

I use two of these pumps with no issues. The easiest way is to design your rig with the pump lower than the liquid to be pumped. Place your ball valves AFTER the pump since the impeller is magnetically driven you wont harm the pump or lose prime.

Did you go with the side inlet or center inlet...sometimes it helps to remove the air by standing the pump on it's tail (so the water feeds directly down to the center inlet). I'm not sure if the one with the inlet on the side would be any better?

Both of mine are side inlets. They wont self prime above the liquid (wont pull a vaccum)

For #1 and #2, yes, add a bleeder valve. You will be happy. For my HLT pump I use a regular acetal gate valve. For my main wort-moving pump I added a tri-clamp fitting, which I can use to pump to my fermenter or drain the BK/MLT in place without disconnecting fittings.





As for #3, I just added the second pump and have never been so happy. Having one just for water and one for wort is a thing of beauty. I understand not wanting to spend the cash, but if you can afford it, it's totally worth it.

-Joe

nostalgia said:

-Joe

Click to expand...

Can I just give you $100 and have this shipped to me

With money being tight right now, I think I'll go for a similar setup (minus the trick valve) and just knock out the first 3 steps with the pump. When I get a little more bling in my pocket...I'll definitely consider moving up to a 2nd pump.

First I need to run a 220 to the brew stand, buy the rest of the fittings for the current pump, and figure out how to run an element into the bottom of my brew kettle without having to buy a $50 punch that I'll use once! Damn this hobby got expensive FAST!

LOL That happens It kinda gets away from you.

Look for step bits on Ebay. I got one big enough for an element for like $10. And they're very useful to have around the house.

-Joe

The shuffling of QD's is one of the evils of our set-ups. Honestly, without a second pump, or a really well engineered hard pipe system, I think just have to learn to deal with it.

So QD's aside, you have two problems.

1.) Priming - which everyone knows they have to deal with
2.) Spillage - which everyone finds out they have to deal with

I'll address both issues together.

There are a lot of thoughts about priming. I will attach a picture of my solution at the bottom of the post. I don't use "bleeder" valves, but instead, opted for a full ball valve set up - you'll see.

The first valve on the bottom right (to the right of the SS tee) is where water/wort always enters the pump. As you said, it has to be gravity fed, and you can see how close to the ground I have it. That entry point is the lowest point on my rig. You could say this inlet valve is almost useless, but its one job is actually very important; it saves me from making a mess. Every time I need to change tubing connections, that valve gets closed and keeps all the liquid in the pump and tubing from spilling out onto the garage floor. That was the last addition I made to the pump, and it took me a very messy brewday to figure out it was needed.

The next valve I will point to is the SS Valve on top. That is only for flow control, and very common to have. I added a valve to the top of my mash tun (not pictured) so when water/wort is traveling to the tun, this top valve is fully opened, and the throttling is done on the tun at point of entry. However, this valve does get used to control flow rate during my whirlpool, but needs to be fully opened when the system is being primed.

The last two valves, the SS one to the left of the tee, and the brass one at the end of the 5' vinyl tube, work together. I use these two to purge air from the system. Rather than running the pump and "bleeding" air out, I will open all the system valves I plan to use and encourage as much fluid to enter the pump as possible. At that time, I open the SS ball valve to the left of the tee. Nothing happens until I also open the brass valve attached to the vinyl tube. I squat down to keep the tubing at ground level to fill with liquid, then just stand up, and all the water/wort that was just in the vinyl flows back down through the pump and uses the force of the fluid to push all of the trapped air right out of the lines. I then just use my foot to kick the SS ball valve (to the left of the tee) closed, close off the brass ball valve, and turn on the pump.

It works every time, and takes about 5-10 seconds to have the lines completely void of air. Yes, it requires some hardware, but it makes priming insanely easy, and keep fluid from spilling all over the floor while I change the system around - solving both of your main two issues.

...and the mouse pad is just there to buffer vibrations from the running pump.

Joe

Here it is...my EZ prime pump.

Good stuff - subscribing.

nostalgia said:

For #1 and #2, yes, add a bleeder valve. You will be happy. For my HLT pump I use a regular acetal gate valve. For my main wort-moving pump I added a tri-clamp fitting, which I can use to pump to my fermenter or drain the BK/MLT in place without disconnecting fittings.
...

As for #3, I just added the second pump and have never been so happy. Having one just for water and one for wort is a thing of beauty. I understand not wanting to spend the cash, but if you can afford it, it's totally worth it.

-Joe

Click to expand...

Joe,

How do you make sure the fermentation outlet is sanitized after recirculating in the BK?

I spray it down with sanitizer. The back end is sanitary enough for me, as it's been exposed to the boiling wort.

-Joe

nostalgia said:

I spray it down with sanitizer. The back end is sanitary enough for me, as it's been exposed to the boiling wort.

-Joe

Click to expand...

Do you worry at all about the interior of the ball valve, since you are not recirculating through there?

Actually now that you mention it, last time I ran a few quarts of boiling wort out the front into a bucket and put it back into the boil, so the interior of the valve was completely sanitary. Probably not necessary, but certainly can't hurt.

-Joe

Are those Kent plastic connections? If so how do you like them?