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March Pump Volume

Curly55

Master Brewer
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Kitsap County, Wa
    So a little back story... I have been building a two tier brew stand modeled around the brew magic stand. This will involve using a pump to move water form the HLT to MLT at different stages and so on. I have been brewing on a home built three tier stand that moved all liquids via gravity. So I have yet to use a pump.

    I plan on doing so water trials but my question is what kind of "Trub/Cooler Losses" can I expect using a pump to transfer wort form the BK to the carboy?
 
After 50 views and no responses I will start it out.  I have no idea.  Yet, I am interested for my own reasons.

So... What is the liquid volume of a march pump, filled?

What is the diameter of the hoses you are using?

What is the volume of a one foot section of that hose?

Then, how many feet of that hose do you attach to the pump and to the equipment it drains/feeds?

OK, BS community.  Have I asked the questions that need to be asked?

Are there others?  What do we need to do to resolve this thread?

 
I tried to reply last night by phone, but it error-ed for what it's worth. My phone always gets an error when trying to post here.

The OP doesn't mention if re-using the same pots from the 3 tier stand.
 
grathan said:
I tried to reply last night by phone, but it error-ed for what it's worth. My phone always gets an error when trying to post here.

Don't know that it was just your phone, I couldn't get on here last night to save my life. Thought it was just my provider tired of me wearin' out the lines.
Anyway, I am interested as well. I have decided I'm tired of cobbing together sawhorses, blocks of wood, plastic outdoor furniture, etc. to get gravity to help me out, not to mention the lugging of the 8 or so gallons of water/wort/mash.
I do know that pumps of any design are significantly affected by both size of hose, and amount of head ( ;) no, not on the beer..... the height differential from pump to where you want the liquid to be, if in fact there is a height differential, or are all the kettles at the same level).
Don't know that I have the space for a really cool 3 kettle unit like I want, but I'm going to fall back on the 'where there's a will, there's a way' adage  8) so getting a pump will probably figure significantly into the equation.
 
Generally speaking, the carboy will be lower than the pump so there is no real loss.  It can all drain into the carboy.  My march pump does not hold a lot.  I usually try to fill the hydrometer container from the remaining wort.   

If the carboy is higher, then depending on how long you hoses are, sit si still 2 to 3 cups. 
 
jomebrew said:
Generally speaking, the carboy will be lower than the pump so there is no real loss.  It can all drain into the carboy.  My march pump does not hold a lot.  I usually try to fill the hydrometer container from the remaining wort.   

If the carboy is higher, then depending on how long you hoses are, sit si still 2 to 3 cups.
agreed, but if the mash tun is higher than the HLT, what about doing a fly sparge? That was kind of where I was with it. Like I said...if all on the same level, then the height differential is moot, essentially....really only going from bottom of one kettle to top of the other. Just a thought....
 
This discussion sparks an idea.  We should get a collaborative design team going to design a system that an average home brewer can make themself.  What do you guys think?  If there is enough interest, we could make a new sub-board (with Brad's permission).
 
I'll bet you $5 you can't get a sub form outta Brad.


I've been thinking about a new setup lately.
 
beernbourbon said:
agreed, but if the mash tun is higher than the HLT, what about doing a fly sparge? That was kind of where I was with it. Like I said...if all on the same level, then the height differential is moot, essentially....really only going from bottom of one kettle to top of the other. Just a thought....

Yea, I missed the hot liquor tank party of the original message.

I have a two level system.  My mash tun is above my brew kettle.  My hot liquor tank (just hot water for those not used to the term) is level with my kettle (I have a two burner camp stove).    I have a fixed pump, plate chiller setup so I pump hot water through the plate chiller into my mash tun.  I lose about 15F on the way so I always have my strike temp about that much higher than the calculations. 

I batch sparge so I gravity drain into the kettle then pump sparge water back up to the mast tun and sparge.  I use a single step batch sparge.

When it is time, I pump into the carboy if the ground water is cold enough, otherwise I gravity feed into the carboy adjusting the rate with a ball valve inline and after the plate chiller.

 
grathan said:
I tried to reply last night by phone, but it error-ed for what it's worth. My phone always gets an error when trying to post here.

The OP doesn't mention if re-using the same pots from the 3 tier stand.

Yes the Original Pots will be used for the new stand.

Rep said:
After 50 views and no responses I will start it out.  I have no idea.  Yet, I am interested for my own reasons.

So... What is the liquid volume of a march pump, filled?

What is the diameter of the hoses you are using?

What is the volume of a one foot section of that hose?

Then, how many feet of that hose do you attach to the pump and to the equipment it drains/feeds?

OK, BS community.  Have I asked the questions that need to be asked?

Are there others?  What do we need to do to resolve this thread?

The hose is all 1/2" id silocon and I will be using 5' on the suction and another 5' on the discharge.
jomebrew said:
Generally speaking, the carboy will be lower than the pump so there is no real loss.  It can all drain into the carboy.  My march pump does not hold a lot.  I usually try to fill the hydrometer container from the remaining wort.   

If the carboy is higher, then depending on how long you hoses are, sit si still 2 to 3 cups. 

The pump is mounted a mere 6" from the deck and the drain valve from the BK is at the same height. This is because I wanted to use gravity from the MLT to the BK for lautering perposes and only wanted one pump. The design flaw with the Sabco brewmagic is that the drain valve of the BK is tall enough to drain directly into a carboy and this puts the MLT and HLT to high to be able to see into with out a step ladder (which avoiding the step ladder was the reason for the new stand in the first place). However the carboy is roughly 24" tall therefore I have a height difference of around 18" between pump discharge valve and top of the carboy.

Ill have to post pictures of the stand later today but I hope to have the burners installed by this weekend to be able to do a test run with some water to figure these volumes out.
 
Beer_Tigger said:
This discussion sparks an idea.  We should get a collaborative design team going to design a system that an average home brewer can make themself.  What do you guys think?  If there is enough interest, we could make a new sub-board (with Brad's permission).

I'm game... Not sure if SWMBO would be appreciative, but hey, garage is getting re-built from 93 y.o. neighbor backing his car through it, sooooo.....  ;D
 
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