Recirculating Mash

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keyman

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Hi

I am about to finish up on my new ten gallon system. I will be doing a recirculating mash with a chugged pump on this system. My question is, what is the best or better way to control the flow 1- by throttling the flow by cutting back on the ball valve or 2- using a rayostate and control the speed of the motor? Thanks for your input.
 
Hi

I am about to finish up on my new ten gallon system. I will be doing a recirculating mash with a chugged pump on this system. My question is, what is the best or better way to control the flow 1- by throttling the flow by cutting back on the ball valve or 2- using a rayostate and control the speed of the motor? Thanks for your input.

Throttle the OUTPUT ball valve on your pump. Do not throttle back any valves on the supply side of the pump.

I can't speaking to controlling motor speed, but my understanding is the AC pumps (such as Chugger and March) are not to be throttled using motor control.
 
Throttle the OUTPUT ball valve on your pump. Do not throttle back any valves on the supply side of the pump.

The reason to throttle the pump output is to avoid cavitation at the pump impeller. Cavitation will eventually damage the pump impeller. To avoid cavitation you want to have more flow restriction on the output side of the pump than on the input side.

Brew on :mug:
 
I guess that makes sense to me. I do have valves on both sides I knew you shouldn't throttle the input side. I wasn't sure about controlling the pump itself. This helps answer my question. thanks!
 
Throttling any pump on the suctions side without knowledge of the process and mechanical functionality of the pump is a bad idea, and will lead to damage of the equipment. You should always in this case throttle with the discharge of the pump.
 
ive done a motor control on my pannel and while its convenient really its honestly just as easy if not easier to use the valve to set flow. walking back and forth from the panel to the tank to see what it is doing vs standing over the top while moving the handle really just works better.

as said in all other posts adjust flow on discharge.
 
I'm not sure if the bearings in the motor to a chugger pump are ball or sleeve. What I can say from my experiences in the HVAC field though is that you do not want to vary the speed of a sleeve bearing motor as it will damage the bearings.
That being said, I control the flow of my recirc by restricting the flow with the ball valve on the output side of the pump.
 
Is there a rule of thumb on the flow rate needed for recirculate say output valve set at quarter, half, three quarter open?
 
Is there a rule of thumb on the flow rate needed for recirculate say output valve set at quarter, half, three quarter open?

The only thing I concern myself with is that I'm not creating allot of turbulence in the mash so I'm not getting aeration. I would guess that my ball valve is approx. 1/4 open.
 
I can't contribute anything to what's been asked and answered so far, but I did realize something recently that could help others who also use pumps. I recirculate during ramps on a direct-fire MLT, and from time to time have had problems controlling the flow. I pump out of the MLT and into the BK as well, and fly sparge, and was having a helluva time regulating the flow rate into the BK. It turns out that with a slow flow rate going through a ball valve, it doesn't take much grain particles to plug up the ball valve. The solution, though not elegant, was to tap the valve itself with my adjustable wrench. And I'm still hunting down the gaps that seem to let a little too many big particles through...
 
Do not use a rayostate to control the speed of the motor.
You will eventually burn the motor up. Been there dun that.
 
On a centrifical pump you should also have 10 times the diameter of straight line before the pump. If you have 1/2 inch tubing then the intake of the pump is probably 3/8. .375 times 10 is 3.75 or 3 3/4 inches. I've seen many pumps with a 90 degree fitting right on the suction side and that's a big no no! These pumps also work best at a certain rpm and they are designed that way so, as mentioned, do not change the pump rpm, just use the output ball valve.
 
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