Height of whirlpool/circulation inlet

[jameswatsonuk]

Yo, here’s a picture of my kettle (50l) and my current recirculating solution using a cheap (but surprisingly powerful) eBay pump.

Hose clamped over the brim, angled in slightly below the wort level. Recirculating to speed up wort chilling and heating, and getting mash/sparge water to temperature. Gets a gentle rotation of the liquids, not a vigorous whirlpool by any stretch, but does the job. I don’t run it during the boil, and lid comes off completely at boiling.

Anyway, I’d like to be able to run it with the lid properly on, hence the need for an inlet. The question is, at which height (A, B, C or D)?

Common wisdom say about a third of the way up from the bottom of the kettle, so B maybe.

I’d like this port to also serve as a filling valve to receive fresh water from tap/hose and lautered wort back in from a drainage vessel below the MLT (orange cooler to the left) at a lower height by pumping with this same pump, therefore avoiding dangerous lifting/tipping.

The thing that concerns me is whether the pump will have a problem filling the kettle once the volume of liquids reaches a certain point over the return valve. Will it pack in/struggle, basically?

I only want to drill one hole, tbh. So what do we think?

Cheers

 

[Broken Crow]

It depends on your usual smallest batch size; Put it a couple inches below the wort level.
If you haven't yet picked out a port to install, here's the best you can get (in my opinion);
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/spincyclesubmerge.htm

 

[IslandLizard]

Any height between 1/3 to 1/2 way up the kettle should work fine, mine is in that range. I'm not sure if positioning height is all that critical, but put it low enough so you can use it for smaller (half size) batches.

Are you putting an angled outlet tube on the inside of the new port to get the wort to spin?

 

[jameswatsonuk]

It depends on your usual smallest batch size; Put it a couple inches below the wort level.
If you haven't yet picked out a port to install, here's the best you can get (in my opinion);
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/spincyclesubmerge.htm

Aye, I’ve already clocked those, and they do look fancy…. Though I’ve got too many 1/2” bsp SS ball valves, elbows and hosetails lying around from previous creations to justify forking up for one is those!

Only done 38l batches, so 10 USG (UK brewer: I stick to metric litres and kilos as they’re unambiguous ), on this kettle. So point C seems to be what I’m aiming for. However that might be an issue for smaller batches on this system

 

[jameswatsonuk]

Any height between 1/3 to 1/2 way up the kettle should work fine, mine is in that range. I'm not sure if positioning height is all that critical, but put it low enough so you can use it for smaller (half size) batches.

Are you putting an angled outlet tube on the inside of the new port to get the wort to spin?

Yeah, sort of. I was going to just connect with a ball lock valve on the outside, bsp threaded into a spare SS elbow pointing laterally and clockwise (flowing chill water anticlockwise through IC , when appropriate) with hosetail to narrow the flow, therefore increasing the pressure.

The pump’s rated at 9L/min. Just that’s enough to move the liquid at that depth

 

[BBBF]

Any height between 1/3 to 1/2 way up the kettle should work fine, mine is in that range. I'm not sure if positioning height is all that critical, but put it low enough so you can use it for smaller (half size) batches.

When I made my bottom, draining keggle, I wasn't sure if I needed a drain in the normal location or not (as low as I could go on the side of the kettle). I successfully whirlpool through this, so I would say height isn't critical at all.