Other Than The Pump, What Do I Need to Pump?

Ball valve on out flow. Connections to tubing (quick connects, or other 1/2" connectors) and 1/2" thermoplastic tubing. Ball valve only attaches to outflow (e.g. you'll destroy your pump if you try to regulate inflow). No need to have a second ball valve to release air.

If you're not mounting it in on a stand, you might want to build an enclosure or do a tool box build (someone posted the build recently) where its built into a tool box with a power supply etc. that you can just wheel around or carry.

 

From my limited/recent experience with pumps: If you are plugging into an outside recepticle you probably already have a GFCI in that branch circuit. always make sure your pump is below what you are pumping and your inlets are NOT on top. If you can see through your inlet hoses it's much easier to prime... and don't be afraid to "jog" your pumps or loosen QDs momentarily if necessary.

 

liquid

 

For my MT pump I use w 3-way - 1/2". I don't need it to release air, I use it for CIP to dump. Make sure you mount the pump with the outlet at either 12:00 or 3:00. That way it will have a chance to pure air.

You'll need disconnects. I have a mix of about every type as they all have good and bad aspects. I use the Blickmann ones on my MT pump. No cross-threading issues yet. But I screw those on first, so the hose is straight and not putting a side load on the threads.If you don't want those then I'd go with camlocks.

And have you looked at hose yet? I use silicone from brewershardware. He also has high-flow barbs.

Hose clamps - the normal ones rip up silicone hose. For my next change out I'm going to get these:
http://brewhardware.com/accessories/145-clamp

 

An extra valve of some sort to release air will help greatly when priming the pump, though a ball valve for this purpose seems like overkill. I use 1/2" ID silicone hoses (expensive) and, as yinzer correctly observed, they tend to be incompatible with standard, worm type hose clamps. However, I've found that friction works just fine with barbed fittings - they're not trying to hold any significant pressure.

 

once you get a pump, it opens a whole new level of fun and $ drain...
-I highly recommend putting a T on your outlet, I enjoy being able to switch from vorlauf to sparge phase without having to switch hoses. Also it allows me to prime the pump quickly. Obviously you would need valves on both outlets. Get stainless...bargainfittings.com or morebeer.com is a good place to shop.
-thermoplastic or silicone tubing. Silicone is nice for lautering since you can see the liquid and be sure that things haven't plugged up...put personally greatly prefer the durability of the thermoplastic hosing. I use both.
-disconnects...you've got choice of tri-clover, QDs, Blichmann or cam-locks to name a few options. My system is a mixed bag of QDs & tri-clover (RIMS tube & plate chiller are tri-clover while everything else has QDs). I did use barbed fittings for a while until I freed up money to make the switch after a scalding incident where I pressurized a line that didn't have the valve on the kettle open (sounds worse than it really was...).
-if you like IPAs, do yourself a favor and rig up a whirlpool inlet on your kettle.
my list can go on here...
As yinzer states make sure your inlet is at 6 o'clock and your outlet is at 12 o'clock. I don't know enough about wiring in each individual house, but a GFCI is recommended unless the outlet your plugging into has one build in already like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA

Cheers!

 

Outlet should be at 12 or it is more dificult to prime.

 

The large volume of wort in the kettle will push the wort through the pump and out the top. Having the outlet at 12 o'clock makes it real easy for all the air to escape without creating an air pocket.

 

When you start to see the inlet hose lose suction or drain (hopefully the wort will be visible thru the hose) , stop your pump and let the inlet hose refill if necessary before resuming pumping. The last wort can be gravity collected in a vorlauf pitcher and dumped in your kettle...at least that's how I do it.

 

Restrict the flow on the outlet side of the pump. Close the ball valve on that side until the amount exiting balances the amount entering.

 

There shouldn't be an elbow directly attached to the pump. The outlet typically has a ball valve and then a QD. You can add other fittings, but typically the first few inches past the outlet of the pump should provide an unrestricted upward path for air to exit the system when you prime the pump. Once the pump is primed it can be restricted to the desired flow rate using the ball valve. If you do it correctly, priming is just a matter of opening ball valves - gravity will prime it. If air can't easily rise, liquid can flow passed pockets of air instead of pushing the air out. Air bubbles are your enemy. They will occasionally occur, but you will quickly learn to avoid them 95% of the time. Where they DO tend to occur for me is when I draw from a vessle without a dip-tube (trying to tip the kettle to empty it all the way). One of my boil kettles uses a bazooka tube to block hops. So the outlet of the kettle is about an inch above the floor of the kettle. I have to "tip it" by raising one side in order to fully empty it. If I forget to do that, I end up with air bubbles causing the pump to cavitate. That's a pain in the ass because there is so little liquid left to try to get the pump reprimed to force wort through the hopback and chiller.

 

One thing to note is that I (possibly others) usually need to turn the pump off and on a few times to get the bubbles out. The head will be wet and won't make any terrible noise, but it also doesn't really pump.

If we look at this picture then we can look at the different scenarios. Here the outlet is at 3:00. This works well for me, but I also have it mounted about three feet below the feed and slightly tilted up. So lets fill it with liquid and assume that there is air trapped inside. As you can see they will float to the top of the housing and have a chance to get out. If this pump was mounted 180* off, with the dome part at the top then you can see how it's possible for air to be trapped inside.

Likewise if the outlet was at 6:00 - pointed down. The bubbles Will stay in top of the inlet. Again I believe that the pump can't pump out a large number of bubbles and that's where the turning the pump off and on helps.

People seem to have the best luck with the outlet at 12:00. I'm not sure why this would be the case. Possibly if the outlet is at a level plain bubbles will sit in the top of the hose.