mash pump

Hi,

I'm looking for a pump to tranfer the mash, grains and wort, to the lautering tank.
Currently own a little giant TE-5-MD-HC, will it do the job?

Thanks
Royi

cheese said:

Hi,

I'm looking for a pump to tranfer the mash, grains and wort, to the lautering tank.
Currently own a little giant TE-5-MD-HC, will it do the job?

Thanks
Royi

Click to expand...

The grains and wort are the mash, and why would you transfer them? Normally, you transfer the mashed wort to the boil kettle after lautering in the same vessel. Then dispose of the spent grains.

Maybe you have a different setup??

wildwest450 said:

The grains and wort are the mash, and why would you transfer them? Normally, you transfer the mashed wort to the boil kettle after lautering in the same vessel. Then dispose of the spent grains.

Maybe you have a different setup??

Click to expand...

I'm planning a german style setup, where lautering is done on a separate vessel

cheese said:

I'm planning a german style setup, where lautering is done on a separate vessel

Click to expand...

I'm confused, why mash in one tank then transfer to another to sparge/lauter in? Sorry for going off topic, i'm intrigued.

wildwest450 said:

I'm confused, why mash in one tank then transfer to another to sparge/lauter in? Sorry for going off topic, i'm intrigued.

Click to expand...

For my understanding , that's how most commercial breweries work.

one advantage for boiling and mashing in the same vessel is that you need only one heat source.

Also there no dead space in the mash tun

That pump is only rated for fluids up to 1.1 SG, so I kinda doubt it would be able to handle the whole grist, but I'm not really sure. I'd think you'd need something with huge inlets and outlets to prevent clogging. Sounds like an interesting concept though. Could you just use your lauter tun as the mash tun also?

I've been to some pretty large commercial breweries, and never seen a system like you describe, but I'd be very interested in seeing one or learning more about it. The large breweries I've been to often use a single heat source like a steam boiler, but still have three separate vessels.

That's the concept I'm after

http://www.keg-gruber.at/index.php?...d=88&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=104&lang=de


guess I need a stainless pump.

Maybe a positive displacement pump..

Very cool. Thanks for the link. I like the sheild thing he uses to separate the trub at the end of the boil in the video. Seems like the pump he's using doesn't have a much larger inlet and outlet than your pump, so maybe yours will work fine.

You'll need a peristaltic pump with a BIG hose. Most are designed for metering small amounts of fluids in labs....so you'll need to modify a pump.

Really, this could get expensive and I think you'll find it's going to be a PITA to transfer the mash, clean the BK, etc. especially if you're not moving LOTS of grain like a brewery does.

I like your system.....have you seen the build I'm working on (in my sig)? It's very similar....a basket may be just what you need!

The only reason to pump the mash to another vessel is to free up the MLT to get another mash started. At the homebrew scale I see no benefit for this. I always do two batched when I brew, an extra hour is not going to kill me, I'm not doing it for money.

I have a nearly identical Little Giant pump, and it is not rated for pumping solids. It will pass small particles and the like but pumping a thick mash slurry is almost certainly going to fail in an epic manner.

cheese said:

one advantage for boiling and mashing in the same vessel is that you need only one heat source.

Click to expand...

Yes, they use a steam jacketed kettle (or kettles) and they do steam infusion mashes to control the mash temp... As such, they have a boiler system to generate the steam and direct the heat as needed, so they only have one heat source, as you note. Once you get to a commercial brewery scale, direct fired kettles are nearly if not totally useless, IMO.

I see steam as media more than a heat source, like electricity for that matter.
The coils in the kettle are the heat source.

In the link I added there are only two heat sources, one in the boil/mash kettle and the other in the HLT.

I could place the boil kettle higher than the lautering tank so the grist will gravity fall.

ScubaSteve said:

.

I like your system.....have you seen the build I'm working on (in my sig)? It's very similar....a basket may be just what you need!

Click to expand...

Thanks, I like your's too.
thought about using a basket but couldn't find them here in Israel.
my system works pretty well, but i can't brew with it more than 6 gallon or very big beers.

They have a cool looking bottle filler;
http://www.keg-gruber.at/index.php?...d=73&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=104&lang=de

JuanMoore said:

That pump is only rated for fluids up to 1.1 SG, so I kinda doubt it would be able to handle the whole grist, but I'm not really sure. I'd think you'd need something with huge inlets and outlets to prevent clogging.

Click to expand...

All though this is not our pump...in a way it is since LG copied all our products almost right down to the name!! Anyway the #5 pumps can handle up to a 2.0 SG if you trim the impellers. I cant say for sure what the size of the impeller on the LG pump is but our TE-5C-MD pumps have a 2.875 O.D. and that will handle up to a 1.1 SG you can trim the impeller down to a 2.125 and that will handle up to a 2.0 SG. Of course the flow rates drop off to a max of 13gpm and 15' of head height. The only downfall will be the size of the inlet's and outlets with clogging like JuanMoore said above.

-Walter

Thanks for the replay.
How do I calculate the SG of the grist?

Slump test like cement, over 1/16" high forget it can't be pumped.

The pump will not be the only problem when trying to move the thick mash slurry. The hoses and fittings would need to have a very large ID in order to avoid plugging problems. The in/out ports on the pump head will probably also be too small. I often thought that something like this might work well: http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?...d2f23c433-A012BD85-B4DB-9B66-2CEEAE8C38563EED

A shop vac would power it and the mash could be collected in the bucket then dumped into a lauter tun.

Back to basics you'll need one of these, best bang for the buck;http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...a=X&ei=dqgsTcmvG5GWsgONqsmRBw&ved=0CC8Q9QEwAg