When I build my new brewhaus I am going to go with a flat (not tiered) setup. I am considering designing in a Grant for use during the lautering process, this instead of pumping wort from the MT into the kettle.

Do any of you use a grant for this purpose or know someone with a slick setup who does? If so, I'd appreciate your feedback, URL's and pics of their system (if the Grant thing is a good idea).

Downside of using a Grant for this?

I've thought about this as well, but I think you'd need some type of a float switch to turn on the pump as needed.

You wouldn't run the risk of compacting the grain bed with the pump with a grant.

I know most people think that a Mag coupled pump has no suction, that's just not true. I have a friend that designs fluid transfer systems for mfg and he looked at me like I was crazy when I said that. He said they don't have as much suction as other types of pumps but he said it could definately suck the grain bed down if I opened the valve on the output side all the way.

Grants are a great thing. If you are pumping out of a mash / lauter tun I'd definitely suggest it. This way you can run off at whatever rate you want and pump out at full bore.

"but I think you'd need some type of a float switch to turn on the pump as needed."

Or stand there and flick the switch on when nessicary. Hand crafted baby! ;D

Vance is right this will help with grain bed compaction problems. As for a magnetically coupled pump not having suction, they just aren't self priming. Once primed they provide plenty of negative pressure.

Bryan Peretto of Knights of the Mash Fork (kotmf.org) uses a grant on his 40 gallon system. I'm sure this ensures headache free days on his system, but he can fill you in.

What exactly is a grant? I've tried to seach on the innerweb, but I haven't been able to figure it out...

A grant is merely an open vessel that collects gravity runoff from the MLT and when filled, pumps it to the BK. Most do not pump out the wort from the MLT; they just gravity drain. On large systems, it is more feasible to use a grant and then a transfer pump to fill the BK, due to the relative heights of the two vessels. With 5 or 10 gallons, we can simply lift the MLT to a bench, or fill it when it is on a bench, having the BK lower, as in sitting on a burner on the floor.

I do something like this, but I didn't realize it was called a grant. I don't pump out of the MLT, though.

The reason I do it is so I can use the same vessel as an HLT and a boil kettle. I collect my first runnings in the grant while the sparge water is heating in the boil kettle. I have an electric heater element in the grant so the wort doesn't cool off too much. I guess that's the drawback is that it will take you longer to boil because your wort will be cooling off in the grant.

"The reason I do it is so I can use the same vessel as an HLT and a boil kettle."

I was trying to figure out why one would want to use a grant. The only reason I could come up with is a shortage of vessels. Are there other reasons I'm missing?

Pretty much. I only have one burner and I don't need to do any kettle swapping. My grant is an electric turkey fryer that I used to do the whole boil in, I just added a drain and valve to it.

If you are brewing on a large volume system, you need to pull the wort from lauter tun UP to the top of the BK. Some people have been using a pump to pull wort out of the lauter tun and pump it UP to the top of the BK, because manually lifting and moving large volumes of wort would be impossible.

By letting gravity drain the wort from the lauter tun, collecting it in the temporary storage of a grant, and then when it accumulates to a full grant, it is then pumped UP to the BK.

Heat is not lost, as the BK can be heating while the lauter tun drains.

This is not a necessary thing for small volume systems, as we can move the MLT/cooler ourselves.

You cannot do that with 20 gallon and larger brew systems.

Nothing is gained by doing this on a small HB scale.

Ah...gotcha. Thanks for the info. I never thought of it that way before.

Thought I would revisit this thread and see if anyone is currently doing it with a March pump.

I use a march pump from mash to BK. I put a ball valve on the out put of the march pump to allow me to throttle down the flow from mash to BK because once the pump is primed and running at full bore it will compress the mash and stop the flow.

How far are you pumping it up?

I take it you are going right from the mash tun to the pump. Do you vorlauff through the pump?

We use a grant on the club system (40-45 gallon setup). We've experienced bed compaction and stuck sparges on a different but similar system when just hooking the pump to the MLT.

We don't use any switches or funky stuff. Just a ball valve on the HLT and the Pump. We can adjust the flow so that it matches.