March Pump & Temperature Loss

[Montanaandy]

Normally when brewing I just use a gravity feed to strike/sparge from my Rubbermaid HLT to MLT. I pre-heat both the HLT and the MLT with boiling water so that they will hold temp better.

Today while I was brewing I decided to use the March Pump to move the strike/sparge water into the MLT more quickly and save a little time.

I hit my temps dead on in the HLT and did my strike but after stirring found that the temp had dropped roughly 13-14' between the HLT temp (161-62') and the dough in temp after stirring which was around 148' (I was aiming for 150'). Again, this was despite the fact that I pre-heated the Rubbermaid HLT & MLT.

Is it common for the March pump to absorb this much heat when transferrring? Is there any rule of thumb as to how much thermal loss there is when using the March Pump? Thanks, Montanaandy

 

[Poobah58]

The pump doesn't absorb that much heat. You lost it in the mash tun and tubing. Your grain is the biggest culprit as is the tun itself, even if preheated.

 

[Montanaandy]

Yeah I am certain that you are right. When I stopped to think about it, one thing that happened is that the strike water was too hot and I had to stir it for a good 5-10 minutes to get it to the proper temp before I was able to add it to the grain in the MLT. I had already drained the pre-heating water out of the MLT and had added the grain so the temp in the MLT had probably had gone back down quite a bit. Thanks, Montaanandy