A Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine reader recently asked us the following question:
What should I look for when selecting a brewing pump?
Selecting a brewing pump is not that hard. All of the major beer-pump manufacturers now make reliable, affordable pumps that can last for many years. The first criteria you need to insist on is that the pump is designed for high temperatures—ideally to at least boiling temperatures. You need high-temperature support to handle both the mash and the transfer of near-boiling wort through your chiller and into the fermentor. This, unfortunately, rules out the vast majority of “self-priming” pumps as most can’t support high temperatures.
The second feature you want is a magnetic drive, which means that the rotor is not physically attached to the drive shaft for the motor but instead is turned by a magnet. The magnetic-drive feature, which most modern pumps have, lets you pump slower than the full output rate by attaching a valve to the output of the pump. Pumps typically are either on or off and run around 8 gal/min (24 l/min), so you need a separate valve to control flow. The ability to throttle the rate at which the pump operates is critical both for mash recirculation and for controlling the flow through your chiller to control wort temperature.