Pump question

I want the ability to recirculate during mash. Just less stress as a beginning all grain brewer. I want the brew kettle as low to the ground as possible given that I will need to pump to a cooler to strike and recirculate.

I'm going electric with heatsticks. Keggle is 24" high. I've heard pump should be no less than 12" below a source you want to pump from. So I'll need a stand that puts my cooler at least 36" off the ground, correct?

I've also heard the pump works fine with less height from the source. Is this true? Could the keggle be 6" from pump inlet and still work fine? I have already made a pump stand with a tee for priming. Worked fine, though I did lose prime sometimes.

Thanks.

IMO, yes and yes, however, I think you will be in for more stress rather than less doing the recirc thing. I know, circulating the wort with a pump appears to be very easy to do, but the reality is that it is not.

So, I'm having trouble visualizing how you want to set up your system. Do you plan to batch sparge or fly sparge and what are you using for an HLT if anything? You could do this with all vessels on the same level if you pump everything, but that would require two pumps. Otherwise, you can gravity drain the MT into the BK. That still leaves the questions of how you want to do the sparge and where the sparge water will be coming from. Seems to me you will need another kettle or cooler. Give us more detail with maybe a sketch or something and I'm sure someone will be able to answer your questions.

I don't recirculate (yet) but I use a pump for chilling and transfer out of my boil kettle. My pump inlet is about 4" below the outlet of my brew kettle. I'm using a little giant pump, no problems so far but I'm only on batch 8 with my new setup.

That was really the question. Is 4" enough for March pump?

As for my system, I am currently doing no sparge, but will likely batch sparge in the end with another keggle as HLT. I have to cut the top off, etc.. Too much to do these days.

I found recirculating to be fairly easy, gravity drained from MLT, pumped back up from BK. I used a brew stand with a separate valve for priming and it really worked well. I like the ability to adjust mash temp via recirculating and to mash out via recirculating. Then again, only one batch done.

Here's the stand in case anyone is interested.

http://blog.flaminio.net/blogs/index.php/beer/gadgets/pump-priming-aamp-pump-stand