Last year after 34 years of brewing I finally broke down and bought a Blichmann pump as I was getting tired of lifting 3 gallon pots of hot water over my head to pour into my mash tun (Coleman Extreme Cooler).
My current brew setup is I use a very old 3-tier tower with the mash tun on the top level, the brew kettle on the mid-level, and nothing on the last level. Only the brew kettle has a remaining functional propane burner. I use the brew kettle to heat up the mash water, then I pump it to the mash tun, as it flows down from the brew kettle by gravity through the outlet port. I mash in, then when mashing is complete, I drain the wort into the now empty brew kettle.
Here’s my dilemma. I then batch sparge to collect enough wort to boil. I have a separate 8 gallon pot and propane burner to heat up the batch sparge water. The problem is transferring that water back up to the mash tun. I haven’t figured out a good way to prime the pump. The 8 gallon pot doesn’t have a bottom outlet. I have even placed the propane burner on a metal camp table, and have got that to prime by sucking on the outlet hose. Sucking on a hose to move 175 degree water is less than ideal.
So, I am thinking about buying a foot valve for the flexible hose end that goes into the 8 gallon pot, and jerking it up and down until the pump is primed. Unless someone else has got a better idea, I’m all ears.