Immersion Chiller Idea
 

Hi all, I want to share with you an idea that I saw yesterday which I thought was really good.
Obtain a fountain pump from your nearest box store (HD, Lowes etc.) and fit this to your immersion chiller via plastic tubing.
Put the fountain pump into a cooler filled with water and plastic bottles full of ice. turn on fountain pump and pump ice water into chiller. run a second length of tubing from the outflow back into the cooler full of iced water.
Finally - re-use or water your flowers with the runoff.
total cost:
20' copper tubing: $25
fountain pump: $20
10' of plastic tubing: $6
a couple of clamps to secure plastic tubing to copper: $5

If any of you have feedback on this, let me know - I have not tried it yet. The 2 downsides that I have thought of:
1) the pressure from a $20 pump will likely be less than a hose
2) will clamps properly secure plastic to copper to avoid leakeage / contamination?

works great use tap water to get at least in the low 100's. or you'll just be melting ice

The clamps will hold just fine.

If your water is flowing relatively fast it doesn't get all that hot going through the immersion chiller, however if it is flowing at a slow rate it will get hot enough to burn you. That being said, I think it would melt all of the ice and you would have a cooler full of hot water if your flow is too low.

Clone, that's it.
thanks for the link, I'm gonna give it a shot :mug:

I posted a couple days ago about how people use that as a pre-chiller, with a bucket of Ice water and salt...Or they use their ground water as the pre-chiller then hook up the pump and finish with the bucket of ice water.

Another way is to use one of those rotary pumps that you hook into a drill, and submerge on end of the hose in the ice water and the other end to their IC...that way you don't need to do any jury rigging of the pump connector to your IC, since you are using standard hose fitting...AND it can also be used with a batter powered drill, so you don't have to be dependant on electricity to drive the pump.

Man... I never thought of using a drill pump to "feed" the chiller.

I have tried using a small cheap pump from Harbor freight, but I think it was too underpowered. I have a couple drill pumps laying around (from my boat) and it never dawned on me to swipe it for brewing....


Revvy to the Rescue....

Believe it everyone, Revvy knows just about everything in brewing to make life simpler....

bMorris,
do you happen to know what the GPH is of your fountain pump? just curious how much power is necessary as you say yours is underpowered.

Whether the flow rate is slow or fast, you are still moving the same amount of thermal energy from the kettle to the cooler. You will end up melting the same amount of ice, and end up at the same final temperature of the cooler either way.

You are better off with a higher flow rate, though, because it will get your kettle to your final temperature faster.

Ya a drill pump might be cheap but going with a utility pump is much easier. Plug it in and not having to hold a drill for 15 minutes or so.

This is what I use and have never looked at anything else.
Water Ace at Lowe's: 1/6 HP 115 Volt Submersible Utility Pump

while my wort is cooling I can start clean up or any thing else.


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