Pump for Immersion Chiller Question

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scoppi

scoppi

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I've got a 3/8" 50 ft immersion chiller, and am looking at getting a pump so I can recirculate an ice bath through it after the hose water gets my wort down to around 90 or so. The top of my chiller is usually about 3-4 ft off the ground, and I was wondering if either of these pumps will work well for my purposes:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009X8O2E/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000X07GMW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I'd like to get the pump from Amazon, as I have a gift card to use, but does anyone have any experience with either of these pumps, or have any words of wisdom?

Thanks
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I can't speak for either of those pumps. I use a 300-500 gph fountain pump that I got from Lowes. It works great..
 
I dropped my 1/6 horse submersible pump in a bucket of starssan to see if it would work. It promptly shot me in the face with starsan at high speed and painted the ceiling of my garage, which is 10' high. Haven't gotten it set up yet but me thinks it will do.
 
I bought a cheap submersible pump from Northern Tool for other uses, and it works GREAT with recirculation water and the wort chiller. See www.northerntool.com and search for #10898. It's 1/8 hp and pumps 1268 gph. Very useful for other purposes, as well.

glenn514:mug:
 
Cool guys, thanks for the responses. I'm sure all of these pumps are made to handle much heavier work loads than I'll be giving them.

phoenixs4r said:
I dropped my 1/6 horse submersible pump in a bucket of starssan to see if it would work. It promptly shot me in the face with starsan at high speed and painted the ceiling of my garage, which is 10' high. Haven't gotten it set up yet but me thinks it will do.
Click to expand...

Lol!
 
scoppi - did you end up getting either of those pumps?

I'm looking at the Superior Pump on Amazon.
 
TyTanium said:
scoppi - did you end up getting either of those pumps?

I'm looking at the Superior Pump on Amazon.
Click to expand...

Yep, I ended up getting the Wayne one and have used it a few times now. It works great without any issues. I really do think these types of pumps are overkill for our applications, so I'm sure the Superior one would work just fine.
 
Awesome, overkill is what I'm looking for. Faster chill makes weeknight brewing more doable for me. Thanks for the prompt response.
 
scoppi said:
I've got a 3/8" 50 ft immersion chiller, and am looking at getting a pump so I can recirculate an ice bath through it after the hose water gets my wort down to around 90 or so. The top of my chiller is usually about 3-4 ft off the ground, and I was wondering if either of these pumps will work well for my purposes:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009X8O2E/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000X07GMW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I'd like to get the pump from Amazon, as I have a gift card to use, but does anyone have any experience with either of these pumps, or have any words of wisdom?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I forget the name of my pump, but I have one that's very similar to the second one in you post.

Using fairly warm tap water for 10 and then 5 minutes of the pump recircing 5 gallons of ice water, I can get my five gallon wort down to around 62-64 in 15 minutes from flameout.

Good luck.
 
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I got mine from harbor freight for a great price. I use it for both my immersion chiller and as a keg/carboy washer. I think it was a 1350 GPH.
 
Went with the Amazon Superior Pump.

Very excited. Chilling has been the most frustrating part of my brew day thus far...212 to 90 in 5 mins with hose, but the last 20 degrees has been horribly slow with a little 60gph aquarium pump. This should help.
 
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Just ordered the Superior, two day shipping with Amazon Prime. My 50' 3/8 SS IC will arrive on Thursday, and my Cool Brewing fermenter bag on Friday. Ready to brew in the Texas heat this weekend, woot!
 
Where did you end up getting the SS IC? I'm looking to upgrade my copper one soon. Did you research all around for the best price?
 
Smitty,
I picked it up on eBay from New York Homebrew. A little cheaper than their website price, and the cheapest I found anywhere else. It was about $80 shipped. There are also 25' ones on eBay, but I spent the extra to get something I can grow into bigger batches with later.

Mike
 
ThatGeekGuy said:
Just ordered the Superior, two day shipping with Amazon Prime. My 50' 3/8 SS IC will arrive on Thursday, and my Cool Brewing fermenter bag on Friday. Ready to brew in the Texas heat this weekend, woot!
Click to expand...

What horse power pump did you get? I'm looking at the same pump for my 50' 3/8 copper IC. I can't decide between the 1/3 or 1/4 hp pump. Its only $5 more for the 1/3 so I'm kind of leaning toward that one.
 
molson said:
What horse power pump did you get? I'm looking at the same pump for my 50' 3/8 copper IC. I can't decide between the 1/3 or 1/4 hp pump. Its only $5 more for the 1/3 so I'm kind of leaning toward that one.
Click to expand...

I think either one will work fine, I went with the 1/4hp. I've heard that you need to move about 15-20gpm through the chiller to get effective heat transfer, the 1/4 moves 30gpm and the 1/3 moves 40gpm.
 
ThatGeekGuy said:
I think either one will work fine, I went with the 1/4hp. I've heard that you need to move about 15-20gpm through the chiller to get effective heat transfer, the 1/4 moves 30gpm and the 1/3 moves 40gpm.
Click to expand...

I ended up getting the 1/4 HP one too. I hooked everything up this weekend and it seems to flow through the chiller without any problems.
 
Dropped it into a mid-sized Igloo cooler with about an inch of water and 15 lbs of ice. Took boiled wort down to 60F in 20 minutes, quite happy. :ban:
 

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