The singular beauty of the brew pump

I would be hard pressed to say what was the one most important piece of equipment in a brewery, but the simple pump would have to be in the top three. Maybe even number one, because it is used in almost every stage.

When it comes to professional brewing I like to consider myself as a professional home brewer. That’s because I approach my brewing systems not much differently than I did when I was a home brewer.

Very few home brewers have super automated systems. Typically they are put together with imagination rather than a credit card. That’s also my approach to professional brewing as well. There are of course things I don’t compromise on, such as sanitary welds on all stainless tanks, absolutely no plastic fermenters, attention to cleanliness and tank pacification, mash pH, and yeast health: I love my microscope and hemocytometer. Where was I? Oh yes.

The simple pump.

There is one essential ingredient to the way I brew. I use one really good sanitary 1.5 HP pump. It’s on a cart, so it can be moved around the brewery as I need it. When I say sanitary, it means the pump head has no screw threads.

I place the pump on a good cart with a long chord and an on/off switch. On the outlet of the pump I add a Tee with a sample valve on one side. This I open up when I want to prime the pump by letting the air out. Then a 90 degree elbow with a ball valve on the end. That’s about it.

I use the pump for

• Moving hot water to the mash tun

• Moving hotter water to my hot liquor tank, which is higher than my mash tun, so I use gravity to sparge.

• move wort from mash tun to kettle

• Whirl pool after boil

• move wort from kettle through heat exchanger, oxygenator to the fermenter

• From the fermenter to the serving tank if I’m using a Letina. If I’m using a conical that holds pressure I transfer by CO2 pressure.

• Cleaning and sanitizing all my tanks

• Using it with my R2 keg cleaner to clean kegs

I’m also living on the edge because we don’t have a back up. Only once did something happen and we quickly borrowed a pump from one of the other breweries in town.

However, after every brew we disassemble the pump head and completely clean it and make sure the seals are in good condition. This baby is a work horse and we want to keep it in tip-top condition.

I’ve mentioned before, but I’ve owned two turn-key breweries in addition to the other five I owned. One sweet system I bought from a bank in Albuquerque for only 35k. A 7 BBL system with 8 serving tanks, 2x7 BBL conicals, 2c15 BBL conicals and all the hoses and stainless detritus that goes along with it. The other one was a 20 BBL system for 75k with one 20 BBL bright and three 40 BBL conicals, a filter, a keg cleaner, a boiler, and a Meheen bottler.

The common theme of these two breweries was the control panel and the built-in pumps with all the valves on a manifold. It looked really cool but was a pain in the ass when doing cleaning loops. Plus, lots more maintenance. With the system I started with back in 1993, to the system we still use with the exception of the two turn-key systems, we use just one pump. Simplicity!

So in a way we still have a turn-key system. We turn the key to unlock the door in the morning, and then brew some beer.