Backflushing a Chugger pump?

[Yesfan]

Sorry for the dumb question, but...


Can I back flush a Chugger pump to rinse out PBW? What I normally do is let it recirculate hot (around 150F) PBW wash using my tun as the holding vessel as I'm doing the hop schedule. After about a 20 min recirc, I drain and rinse the tun, then unplug the pump and run rinse water through the output side so the rinse is exiting through the input.


I've only done this twice and I never ran the pump when hooked up this way. Will this damage the pump? Does the pump have to be running to flush out the soap? I thought about running it, but was afraid my faucet wouldn't be able to keep up.

 

[jkovac]

Why don't you just take it apart and clean it out? You only have to remove 4 screws.

 

[TexasDroughtBrewery]

Ive flushed my pump in similar ways and it still runs after a year. But to be fair I have also done what jkovac recommends and took the screws off and cleaned it that way before too, just as easy.

 

[Dolomieu]

8 screws. This shouldn't cause any issues. There isn't anything inside to stop the impeller (?) from spinning backwards. Since it's magnetic driven you aren't straining any mechanical parts. I usually just remove the head as stated above.

 

[FreddyMar3]

+1 to taking it apart, and doing so more often than you'd think. I went too long and just took mine apart after 15 brews... it had caked up black crud (I recirc during boil) and a big chunk of hop stuck in it, despite recirculating with hot PBW mix and rinsing with water after every brew. All said and done, it's probably 5-10 min of work to disassemble and reassemble.