Use of a pump?

[StittsvilleJames]

I'm going to be building a two tier brew stand in the near future, and will only have one pump to start with. What use would you put the pump to? This is the pump in question:

http://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/Brew_Pump_A_magnetic_driven_beer_pump_p/brew-pump.htm


I don't know if I want to use gravity to feed my mash tun and then use the pump to the BK, or should I use the pump to feed the mash tun, and gravity to the BK? If it's the first option, obviously the HLT needs to be higher, and if it's the second, then the BK needs to be lower.

What would you guys do if you only had this little pump to use?

 

[hvjackson]

If you get some quick-disconnects you can just use the same pump for a couple things:
- Recirculate mash
- Pump sparge water into mash tun
- Pump mash into boil kettle
- Recirculate boiling wort through chiller
- Pump wort through chiller into fermenter

I did this for a few batches when I only had one pump and it worked out ok. The key takeaways I had were:

- Make sure you remember to close the valves before you disconnect!!
- When you disconnect a hose there will still be liquid in the lines which can spill a little. Be careful if you're pumping hot liquids.

 

[hvjackson]

I should add that I always intended to get more than one pump to set up a single-tier system, so I wasn't really concerned about figuring out what could be gravity fed vs pumped -- I just used the pump for everything I could think of. Once you invest in quick disconnects on everything it's pretty easy to switch it around.

 

[HDIr0n]

I would use it to recirculate the mash then pump from the MLT to the BK and then use it to re-circulate your wort to speed chilling/whirlpool. I had a MLT that was soo high that I needed a ladder/step stool to stir in my grains, it was just a PITA. With the HLT higher you can batch/fly sparge with one pump, and gravity feed from your HLT. I also have that pump and they work great for my process. I don't miss how much noise my March pump made.
JMO

-G