Homebrew Beer Blog

When I first got a pump, I was all excited to make my brew day faster and easier. That was until I had to prime it, and it got worse the first time I lost the prime.

The March magnetic pumps are great for brewing, but they're not self-priming. These pumps are not terribly powerful, so what happens is a little pocket of air forms outside the input, or in the head itself, and the pump is a no-go. It's not that bad, but it can take some practice and really sucks when you lose your prime and you have to start swapping hoses to get things working. Fear not, there is a better way.

I built this little stand for my pump a while back and it has worked perfectly. This is my second stand, the first was a little more temporary, but I learned a couple things along the way. I never really thought about putting the pump on my actual brew stand, although that is a popular configuration. It's kind of nice to have everything there, but I like moving the pump around. My hoses don't need to be quite as long, and I can use the pump for things off of the brew cart. Specifically, I can pull out my chiller and put it in the drive way without having to bring the whole cart with me.

To start off, the idea here is first the pump must be positioned below your brewing vessels. If it's not, you're going to have troubles. So, you want it as close to the ground as you can, or at least sufficiently below your kettles.

I configured the pump head so the inlet is facing down. I used it facing up, and the default sideways, and feel this works better. The idea here is that gravity will push water up through the pump head, and air will come out the output or purge valve. This will successfully flush the head of air, and successfully eliminates that pocket of air, since air wants to rise. It seems to me, by pushing from the bottom, I get all the air out, plus air wants to go up anyway.

The second part of the design is the purge valve. Here, I just took a T fitting and some nipples with a couple 1/2-inch valves. I also put a barb on the end just so it doesn't dribble all over the place. The idea of the purge valve is you close the main valve, and use the purge valve to flush out the head. This is key, otherwise will have to use your output hose, and that can be a pain if you already got it connected. Plus, generally you need to lay below the pump itself, which is usually the ground, and that's probably not the most sanitary thing with cooled wort.

Lastly, there's the stand itself. This is a sturdy little stand which is nice to keep the pump off of the ground where it gets wet. I run the power straight down from the ceiling where I have an extension cord reel. This makes it safer working with electricity and liquid.

So, to recap, here is how I prime with this setup. Lets say I'm setting up to whirlpool w/ my chiller.

1 - Connect the input hose to the boil kettle and output to the whirlpool return/chiller

2 - Close all valves on the pump and open the kettle valve.

3 - Open the purge valve, and wort from the kettle will flow into the pump head and out the purge valve. Close the purge valve.

4 - Turn the pump on, then open the purge valve again until I get a strong stream, which is usually just a second.

5 - Close purge valve and open the main valve.

That's it. If for some reason I lose prime along the way, I just repeat steps 2-5.

For parts here, this is a March 809-HS pump, which is pretty standard in the homebrew shops. I use 1/2-inch ID silicone tubing. I got the stuff from McMaster-Carr. If you've you have got the extra change, I'd recommend getting the thicker/stiffer stuff rather than the real soft. Less kinking and every once in a while I'll get a pin hole leak in the thin stuff. Not really relevant to this post, but I upgraded my pump config for tri-clovers instead of the hose barbs. That just lets me disassemble easier for storage and drying. All stainless parts are 1/2", and the little stand was built with 2x4's.