March pump crapping out when pushing wort through fly sparge manifold

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badmajon

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I don't know why this is happening, but I made this manifold out of copper pipes and for some reason the march pump craps out when I hook it up. It starts out strong, and I get a good spray coming out of the little holes I made, but then after 30 seconds it stops flowing.

If I disconnect the manifold, the pump works fine. If I reconnect it, the same thing happens. 30 seconds of good flow, then a tapering off. The thing that confusing is the slow taper of wort pressure over 30 seconds. If it were clogged it would just stop.
 
Does it do it with just water?

I wouldn't be trying to vorlauf that way anyway. Gentle flow preferably going in just below the surface. All you're gonna do this way is disturb your grain bed (and oxidize the wort tremendously)

If it's doing it with just water, perhaps widen the holes. May be generating enough back pressure to overload the pump (essentially deadending it). If that's the case, that's a crappy pump, but is what it is.

If it's only during wort recirc, dollars to donuts you're clogging it. But see above. I wouldn't recirc that way in the first place.
 
Oh, good idea- try it with just water. If still clogged, widen the holes. Thank you. Also, I have had the pump for almost 9 years, perhaps the motor has worn out?

Also I thought that oxidization wasn't an issue until fermentation had finished? I never heard of trying to avoid oxygen into wort per say, since its only wort before the yeast does its job.
 
It's the thing the LODO folks go to great lengths to avoid.

The literature (and homebrew books as well) have described oxidation on the hot side for a very long time. The chemical pathways are well accepted. However for some time there was the notion, outside of German brewing circles, that it didn't make a noticeable difference so don't worry about it (and that applies both at home and professionally). And in a sense, that's still true. Cold side oxidation will do far more serious damage. But the aha! moment for me (and many) is the realization that the traditional method of mash-in alone is enough to do be a detriment to the point where one could be forgiven for thinking it didn't make a difference.

I'm not suggesting you go full LODO for the record, nor attempting to start yet another debate on it.

Just saying recircing that way, apart from disturbing the grain bed defeating the point in the first place, had other potential detriments.
 
Quick question:

When the pump "craps out" do you mean flow just stops and the pump keeps running, or the pump actually shuts off (ie actually craps out)? From the thread title I assumed the latter but after a re-read I'm not so sure.

If it's the former, doubly likely you just need to widen the holes. You're probably seeing good flow at first because the lines are empty and minimal resistance to the initial flow. As the lines get packed the pressure probably exceeds what the pump can push through. Like closing off a ball valve, essentially.

Motor going bad could also be part of it, for sure. That does seem like a rather weak pump.
 
Oh right, I remember the LODO thing. Yeah I'm one of those guys that doesn't really like brewing as much as drinking, so just the idea of getting that into the weeds with it gives me a headache.

But yeah, I mean crap out as in the flow just peters out, not that the pump seizes. To be honest I think that pump is on its last legs anyway.
 
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