After using the TopTier for over a year with gravity as my wort transport method of choice, I decided that it was time to change it up. While gravity is pretty awesome, sometimes it can hinder my brew day. There have been times when the siphon was weak due to hop particles getting jammed in the chiller or my lack of vertical drop from the boil kettle to the chiller. With those issues, sometimes my chilling process (for 5 gallons) would take up to 45 minutes. Not a huge deal, but after a long brew day taking close to an hour to chill a batch of beer was the last thing I wanted to do. Granted, it did give me time to get most of my stuff cleaned up…
Now, on to the pump… I researched brew pumps till my fingers bled and finally decided on a Chugger pump. This pump has a stainless steel head and was priced real reasonable. Also, the reviews that I read were all positive and the performance seemed good as well.
After ordering the pump, it was delivered to my door in two days! The pump was actually here before my disconnects and my other fittings. When all of my parts arrived, I started figuring out where to mount the pump on my stand. Since this is not a self priming pump, it would need to be mounted below the lowest vessel on the stand (so gravity can pull the liquid into the pump). For me, that is my boil kettle and it also meant taking the stand apart. I have been meaning to re-tape my gas manifold, so what better time than now to disassemble the stand. With the burners off the stand, I put the pump on the bottom of the stand’s aluminum mast. The pump mounts to a bracket that is secured into the T-slots. Then, it was time to put things back together.
My next brew day is this weekend (1/28) and will be the first run with the pump. I have ran a few tests with the pump and it seems to work really well… Look for an update in my next blog post on the brew day.
