I am making a brew stand, and while i have it all welded up for a single tier, which will require two pumps. Lately i have been considering stepping it down so that i will only need one pump, allowing for the mash tun to gravity drain into the boil kettle. My thoughts is that this will not only cheaper but also i don’t have to worry about the pump causing a stuck sparge. My question is am i being overly worried about the pump creating a stuck sparge? I have never used a march pump before and thus don’t know if it is capable of this.
Yes it is possible to pump your mash too fast too quickly and compact the mash such that it stops draining. Start pumping the mash slowly and slowing increasing the flow helps a lot. Being able to recirculate the mash might have certain potential benefits, but care must be used (i.e., trial and error) to learn how to keep the mash running nicely.
Two pumps is a nice design, plenty of good designs out there. Lots of design ideas at brewhalla: http://www.brewzilla.nl/brewhalla.htm
I plan to build my stand like this one:
I won’t have a burner on the top right like the picture, that’s where my mash cooler will sit and gravity feed to the kettle to the left. The HLT will sit under the mash tun and I’ll pump to the mash tun. My biggest issue is that I’m wanting to build this to work for batches between 5 and 20 gallons, it needs to be able to handle different sized boilers and mash tuns yet be somewhat compact.
Either way works fine. I run two pumps with my setup, but having a setup that runs only one pump has its advantages. IMHO its more about what setup will fit your space requirements best.
