Two-Tier One Pump Rig Design Issue

[Pommy]

Hi everyone just after a couple of tips on my rig design. I am building a two tier system with one pump. HLT will be elevated for gravity fed fly sparging. I was planning on recirculating the mash using my march pump to clear and then pumping to the kettle while gravity ensures the HLT feeds the mash tun fly sparge. My question here is, if I close my ball valve on the output of the march pump to quickly move the output from returning to the mash tun to the kettle connection will the grain bed partially reset or will the march pump maintain the pressure well enough to allow me to do so cleanly? Do you get what I mean?
Cheers,
Mark

 

[northcal]

I have the same system and it works great. Not 100% sure what you're wondering about, but I will say that small batches are easy. If you do bigger batches and/or ones with a lot of wheat or rye, you can use the pump to speed up the sparge. This can lead to stuck mashes, but just mix up and continue. Rice hulls are your friend there. I also close the output ball valve on my march pump SLOWLY so it doesn't cause water hammer and break out my poor soldering jobs.

Best,

Hi everyone just after a couple of tips on my rig design. I am building a two tier system with one pump. HLT will be elevated for gravity fed fly sparging. I was planning on recirculating the mash using my march pump to clear and then pumping to the kettle while gravity ensures the HLT feeds the mash tun fly sparge. My question here is, if I close my ball valve on the output of the march pump to quickly move the output from returning to the mash tun to the kettle connection will the grain bed partially reset or will the march pump maintain the pressure well enough to allow me to do so cleanly? Do you get what I mean?
Cheers,
Mark

 

[Pommy]

Thanks northcal, I was thinking that I would be best to close the valve slowly, so no problems with transferring clear wort to the kettle after the recirculation, closing the valve and swapping hoses then running off to the kettle?

 

[northcal]

I just have one hose coming out of the HLT heat exchanger (I don't swap any hoses), once the grain bed is established during recirculating, the goods should be running really clear. I just put the hose end into the boiling kettle instead of the mash tun and let her rip to get the good stuff collected. The HLT also has a water spigot going into the mash tun to keep the sparge going.

Do you have a pic of your set up or diagram if you're just building it?

Good luck,

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I use essentially the same type of rig except I batch sparge. I love the fact that I can recirculate with my pump and haven't had a stuck sparge yet...knock on wood!

 

[TANSTAAFB]