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march pump problems
I just started all grain brewing and have some questions about my march pump. I am getting a really weak anemic, non-existent sparge. after about 45 or more minutes of waiting and messing around with it the pump finally "charges?" and i get a more consistent stream of water but still it's not great. Can someone who has one of these pumps help me troubleshoot a bit. This thing is driving me crazy.
Thanks
ID
The March pumps aren't self priming so they first need to be gravity fed and you have to make sure there's no air in your lines before turning them on.
To give you an example of how I address this in my set up, when I'm pumping sparge water from my kettle to my HLT I first open the valve on my HLT, then open the valve on my kettle where my water is heating up. This lets the water flow from the kettle into the pump (gravity fed), fill the pump housing and push out any air there might be in the line or pump. Opening the valve on the HLT will let this air escape the pump housing.
I usually wait a few seconds and then turn my pump on. Nine out of ten times this works without fail; sometimes though I get a weak, sporadic transfer of liquid (you'll hear the pump surging when this happens) and I'll turn it off and will usually hear/see some bubbles escape into the vessel I'm pumping from. Once the bubbles escape, I turn it back on and I'm good to go.
I hope I understood your issue correctly and this helps you address your problems.
You may also want check the pump head orientation. The in port should be on the bottom facing down and the out port on the top facing up. Sounds backwards, but this ensures the housing gets filled. And the entire pump head should be positioned below the vessel being pumped from.
The pump is below my HLT so the water can gravity feed the pump, but it is not oriented up and down but left to right. Now that you mention it FPB the pump does the surging thing, guess I'm not purging all the air. I think that I am going to need to relocate my pump so the in and out are up and down. Dang, I thought that I was done building.
Thanks for the help
ID
My pump's inlet and outlet are horizontal as well. It sits about 18" below my kettle and probably 24" below my HLT and MLT. I had problems with priming my pump the first couple of brew days until I got the hang of it.
I don't use the march pump to sparge for this exact reason. Batch sparging rules baby, lol. There are alot of things that can go wrong in a brew day, and sparging is just one, but it's a biggie.
How would I batch sparge? Drain the entire mash tun and then refill with more hot water? Break down the process for me. I agree with you bruguru my brew day is busy enough and anything to simplify is my friend.
Thanks
ID
Irondavy wrote:
How would I batch sparge? Drain the entire mash tun and then refill with more hot water? Break down the process for me. I agree with you bruguru my brew day is busy enough and anything to simplify is my friend.
Thanks
ID
Basically, yes. I vorlauf, then drain(actually pump) the first runnings into my brew kettle. Then I usually add about 4.5 gallons of 180F water to the mash tun, stir, let it settle for about 15 minutes, vorlauf again, drain again. I think that the 15 minute settling period is optional, but I like to do it.
You can also change your housing orientation without changing the motor orientation. This can be done by removing the 4 retaining bolts and either just spinning the housing and reattaching, or you can remove the next 4 bolts and spin the whole head as well as the housing, whichever your space allows.
I say keep the pump, and batch sparge. Then add a plate chiller. This way, you get an easy, fast sparge. And then post boil, the wort goes from rolling boil, through the pump, into the chiller and then right into the fermenter and the perfect temperature to pitch. You can also adjust the temp by adjusting the water volume in the chiller, or the wort flow. I use a combination of both to hit anything within 50 and 75 degrees right on. From kettle to primary, with lid on in 10 minutes.
The only problem I have with my March pump is that I've had it for one year and still haven't hooked it up yet. Still in the plastic, in the original box.
brewchez wrote:
The only problem I have with my March pump is that I've had it for one year and still haven't hooked it up yet. Still in the plastic, in the original box.
BOOO
brewchez wrote:
The only problem I have with my March pump is that I've had it for one year and still haven't hooked it up yet. Still in the plastic, in the original box.
Mine has seen well over 100 batches and i have done no maintenance. The last brewday it started off squealing, then settled down. Apparently it did not appreciate it's 4 month vacation. I bought some oil at the local sewing machine shop, so next brew I will give it some lotion.
"It puts the lotion on!"
Anyway thanks Thirsty for the tip on changing the housing orientation. Definitely going to do that instead of move the whole thing.
As far as doing a batch sparge I stir up the grain bed with the fresh hot water? Is there a chance of getting stuck with all that agitation goin' on? And I am assuming that you just dump the hot water in the top like when you dough in?
ID
I don't stir up the mash during sparge. Just pouring the water in will move the grains around enough. I usually then wait about 10 minutes before draining again. If I'm low on pre-boil volume or gravity, I just run more water through the grains and boil longer. A quick reading with my refractometer tells me when it's ready to chill, rack and pitch.
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