Pumps - can't live with them, etcetera

So, you' either have a pump, and hate it like I do, or are considering buying one - well, I’m here to give you my thoughts, the full scoop, and share some of the little joys of Pumpsmanship.

First of all, as a concept, pumps rock. While one gallon is hardly a back-breaking quantity, 5 gallons and up is a ton of volume (especially since it’s about an extra two gallons pre-boil), and if you don’t have a gravity fed system, but want to sparge, or recirculate in a RIMS or HERMS system, you just don’t have a choice. The rub is that the pumps with unlimited power and no need for priming are ungodly expensive, so we mortals are stuck with pumps that need ginger care starting up (though for whom power is seldom an issue on the homebrew scale)

Which is to say, one must plan for priming. Priming is pretty simple - fill the pump chamber with liquid, because the cheaper pumps don’t enjoy having air in their chambers (while I haven’t looked into the “why,” one hears a grinding noise when one forgets to prime, and I suspect wear-and-tear is a concern without the lubricating effect of liquid; also, these pumps suck at pushing air out, so your practical max flow rate plummets). So, knowing we have to do this, here are some bits of advice to make your priming life easier:

If you’re just now designing a system, or have the flexibility to change yours, add a tee and valve at the output of your pump - having a bleeder like this for air is night and god damned day. I’ve had to prime pumps by removing and replacing just straight raw tubing by hand, and no hands in the world are immune to the pain produced by such scalding, boiling wort. Plus, your losses are way lower if you don’t spray wort everywhere. Trust me, add a bleed valve somewhere

Also, and this is for those who recirculate their mashes, I recently discovered that, assuming you run your sparge water and wort through similar lines (i.e. through one pump in a closed system), it’s way, way easier to prime the line with hot water than pray to the gods that your wort will happily spare the quart it can take to fill the lines

Finally, there’s Bernoulli’s Law to consider - which is to say, if you, like me, have a bunch of valves on the front and back of the pump leading to various things, remember that a closed valve on the output will prevent much of anything from passing the chamber of the pump, even with a bleed valve; which is to say, I’m nearly certain it’s a good idea to keep your outputs open while you prime your pump. I suppose in theory the ideal order is: in open, out open, bleed valve open, out closed (because cheap pumps hate pulling vacuum, so always throttle from the output, i.e. start with output closed)

Deep breaths. Deep. Breaths.