Hate to waste so much water chilling the wort!

So i am thinking of this sort of chiller design.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-wort-chiller-for-homebrewing/

What are your thoughts on this? It seems that this would be a really efficient way to quickly chill the wort and only waste as much water as can fill the cooler with ice.

Yikes, that looks a little too complicated.

I use a pond pump in a 5 gallon bucket to feed my IC. I put oxyclean in my mashtun and another bucket, all the hot waste water from the IC goes into those vessels, conserves water and fuel from my hotwater tank. After the temp gets down to about 100F, I dump ice into the bucket with the pump and begin recirculating the IC water. This way I usually only "waste" a couple of gallons of water, most of the waste water is used as cleaning and soaking solution. The only tricky part is carrying water from inside the house in the winter to the garage because of not having a garden hose anymore. In the summer it's no problem, I just top off the pump bucket with the hose.

My solution is that I have the wife pay the water bill. Just an idea.

I've been reading a bunch that people are starting to let their wort ''air cool''. Somehow the fear of aerobic contamination still lingers with me on that one, but aparently it hasn't been an issue...

If you're environmentally concerned, just collect the water in a drum and use it to water the plants and garden.

I turn the faucet way down and it uses much less water and only takes a little more time...

dub said:

So i am thinking of this sort of chiller design.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-wort-chiller-for-homebrewing/

What are your thoughts on this? It seems that this would be a really efficient way to quickly chill the wort and only waste as much water as can fill the cooler with ice.

Click to expand...

I just noticed you live in Moraga, you need to hook up with Dr. Scott from the Brewing Network!!!

How much do you think 40 pounds of ice costs? Hint: it's not free if you make it in your freezer either.