Flow control downstream of pump needed?

[Beavis740]

Howdy, I have a two kettle setup with a Blichmann Riptide pump to move liquid back and forth…

Riptide has a needle valve built in to control flow rate. With that being said, Is there any advantage to adding a supplemental flow control valve of some kind immediately “downstream” of the Riptide?

If so, WUT kind / brand of valve would be beat? Cost is no object.

I have used this system twice since purchased and it seems the flow is pretty fast. I think I need to slow the flow.

Thanks in advance

 

[day_trippr]

Given the "linear adjustable valve" already present on a Riptide, adding yet another control device to the output path seems like money better spent elsewhere...

Cheers!

 

[marc1]

The Riptide flow valve is on the output of the pump. On mine, it can go from full bore to trickle flow to no flow. Does yours not work? I can't see where another downstream valve would help anything.

As an aside, looking at your setup, I believe that you want the output angled higher (pointed towards the kettle) than the input; yours seems to be about even.

 

[Beavis740]

The Riptide flow valve is on the output of the pump. On mine, it can go from full bore to trickle flow to no flow. Does yours not work? I can't see where another downstream valve would help anything.

As an aside, looking at your setup, I believe that you want the output angled higher (pointed towards the kettle) than the input; yours seems to be about even.

Thanks -- I was trying to maintain a slow rate during recirculation, per my LODO practices. The flow stops if the valve is shut too much. So, it's either full bore flow or no flow. As far as the pump's orientation, I think Blichmann says a horizontal position is ok.

 

[Bobby_M]

It's hard to regulate flow down at the lower 10% area of any valve because it's barely cracked open and prone to clogging. A more suitable configuration for very granular control would use a bypass loop where some of the pump output is directed back to the pump input with a throttling valve in that loop. All the way closed, the pump gets full output. All the way open and the output is practically shut off.

 

[Mpt644]

It's hard to regulate flow down at the lower 10% area of any valve because it's barely cracked open and prone to clogging. A more suitable configuration for very granular control would use a bypass loop where some of the pump output is directed back to the pump input with a throttling valve in that loop. All the way closed, the pump gets full output. All the way open and the output is practically shut off.

I have a typical herms setup with chugger pumps and during sparge I have issues keeping the flow of wort to the kettle and my sparge water low enough with my brew hardware ball valves/equipment. I am constantly tweaking it to keep it low enough or else I sparge too fast. It seems like a lot of extra assembly to build that loop in. The size of the cam locks, valves, and feedback loop will be approaching the size of the pump. Or maybe I am not picturing exactly what this would look like?

There isn’t another valve that could be used further down stream to fine tune the flow at low flow rates?

 

[Bobby_M]

There are a lot of ways to approach it. First, if you put a Blichmann autosparge into the mash tun, you eliminate the sparge water throttling issue and now you just have to get your runoff to the boil kettle dialed in.

One way to slow flow down is to make a dedicated hose with a restricted ID just for this purpose, probably 1/4" would do it and is still large enough to pass the occasional grain particle.

A pump bypass loop would be as simple as putting a tee on the input and output ports, then a valve on the side port of the output tee, then run a hose back to the tee on the input. The pump output tee can also have a valve on the output that you direct to the boil kettle for even more control.

Another option is to gravity drain the tun into a grant and pump wort out of there.

A lot of people chase this kind of slow flow control and gravitate towards the Blichmann linear flow valve, diaphragm valves, or pinch clamps on the hoses but all of them have the same problem when the pump is designed for 6-7 GPM and you're trying to split hairs at .25 GPM.

If you can find a very nicely priced surplus peristaltic pump with a speed control on it that can handle 1/2" OD tubing, that would be very cool. If you could find a dual head version, even better since it can throttle both sparge water and wort at the exact same rate.

 

[micraftbeer]

Dead thread, but... I'm also struggling with trying to get a slow flow out of mash tun into boil kettle during sparge.

@Bobby_M comment gave me an idea. The Anvil Foundry recirc kit I have has this nifty little hose clamp. It slips over your silicone tubing after the pump output, because the Anvil pump used in the recirc kit is simple and doesn't have flow control. I could pop this on the line when I set it to transfer during the sparge. At that point I'm not worried about grain bits clogging it because that was all taken care of during the mash recirc, and I get little to none grain particles out of the mash tun after I mash.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Anvil/Blichmann sell this little guy by itself, and it comes in their $99 recirc kit.

 

[Bobby_M]

You could easily get the same function with a pair of vise grips or a small C-clamp.