Beer Forum

I have had a 3 tier system for going on 15 years and am now struggling to get that 3rd tier set up. My shoulders are toast and my back is a wreck. I want to add a pump to get my sparge water off the ground lose a tier. Will it bring me the bliss that I seek or am I just wasting cash? and if it will bring me bliss, what pump do I want? Chugger? March? inline? other?
Socal

You will have to call the doctor because your boner hasn't gone away for the whole 4 hours you have been brewing with your pump for the first time....

It really is fantastically better if you have a 3 tier system. I have a setup with a electric kettle on bottom, and two coolers on tier 2 and 3. I heat the strike and pump it into the mash tun. Then while mashing I heat the sparge water and pump it up into the 3rd tier cooler. Then I recirculate and either run off the wort then batch sparge from the 3rd cooler or I fly sparge from it. Either way seems to work well. It really was a whole new world though, I strongly recommend it.

Oh, and I have a chugger with the stainless head. I'm not sure why anyone would get the plastic head. As far as one pump being better/worse than another, I have no data on that.

I have my HLT up high & the MLT/Kettle down low. I have a plastic head March pump... because there wasn't a S/S one available back when I bought it. Hell, I don't recall Chugger even being a company back then.

It's awesome. You'll hate the damn thing on the first brew or two, but after you learn how to not run it dry it'll become your favorite upgrade.

Remember to always throttle the output, never the input. I also like having a bleeder valve on the output to make sure there's no air caught between the pump & source (which is going to be your main issue causing it to run dry).

Is there really a reason for purchasing such an expensive pump (Chugger) if he is only going to move water?

I looked at many cheaper pumps and to find one that is food grade and temp rated that has enough head height to pump up to the top tier of a 3 tier system ended up costing a large portion of the chugger one. I did see some cheap ones that looked kinda cheap that were very low flow rate. If you need to pump 6 gallons of water somewhere and you want it done reasonably quickly (without loosing too much heat) then you need something that can move it.

Besides, if he invests in a chugger, he can use it as a whirlpool chiller which was way nicer than not having that.

Once you have a pump, you start wanting to use it for more things. Buy a pump to move some water around, 6 months later you have a plate chiller. It's nice to have options.

Have you been watching me!?

^^ That's the only appropriate answer to that question.