Depending on your home brewing setup, you may need to transfer your beer from one place to another with a beer pump. MoreBeer! has two different styles of pumps - a self-priming and a magnetic drive pump: the self-priming pump is for cool, uncarbonated beer ( coming out of a fermenter); and the magnetic drive pump is for hot liquid transfers (when sparging or recirculating).
What does "self-priming" (and "non self-priming") mean?
Due to how a pump is designed, it will be able to generate pressure (and suction) using air alone, or it will need to have liquid in it to work:
- A pump that is self-priming will pump air and therefore can create a suction that will draw liquid out of a vessel.
- A pump that is not self-priming will not suck air and must be fed liquid via gravity before it will begin to pump.
Helpful tips for working with non self-priming pumps:
- When working with non self-priming pumps such as our March mag-drive pumps, the pump head and lines must be full before the pump is started or you may have cavitation (air pockets forming in the pump-head that will cause the pump to lose suction and no longer move the liquid, despite there being liquid in the lines).
- Because our March pump is magnetc driven, you can put a ball valve after the pump to slow down the flow of liquid without burning out the motor. This is one of the reasons the March magnetic-drive brewing pump is the most widely used pump by homebrewers!
