kitchen sink hookup for immersion chiller

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idkid

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i'm thinking of making an immersion chiller, but i can't find a pick or description of the part i'll need to hook the hose into my kitchen faucet...unfortunately my landlord does not have waterhose hookups (he pays the water bill so its understandable) so i have to use the sink...any help would be totally appreciated...
 
The route that I went is I purchased a dishwasher hookup connector. It is a coupler that works nice, no turning the hose...just remove the faucet aerator, screw on the adapter and click the chiller onto it.

Looks like this:

0815969
 
I just got finished brewing up a 5 gallon All-Grain batch of Dry Irish Stout and I was using a 20' immersion chiller. It's a chiller that I borrowed from a friend. During the chilling process for some reason the pressure in my hose increased and I had some water from the water input fitting spray into my wort. The chiller had been running for several minutes and the temp was probably somewhere around 133-140 degrees when this happened.

I understand that this increases the risk of contamination. Is it highly likely that this leak contaminated my batch or does the brew still have a chance? The water source was coming from my outside water house.

Thanks
 
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4148
Use a regular female hose fitting and put this on your sink.

I have one of these and I've had troubles with it not threading onto the faucet very well. Some faucets, it will work its way right off. I think mainly the faucet's threads aren't very well fabricated.

My solution was to get the $15 acquarium/fountain pump from Harbor Freight http://www.harborfreight.com/258-gph-submersible-fountain-pump-47117.html

A 5 gallon bucket fits in my sink under my faucet. I fill it with ice water (my water doesn't get very cold) and trickle water in to replace the water that is pumped out. Once the wort is cool enough that the water isn't so hot when it comes out, I just recirculate the water over the ice.

The pump is quite quiet too. I was surprised.
 
Hi mjohnson - if you're still around, I'd like to hear more about your aquarium pump solution. Was the pressure / flow rate good enough that you still get quick cooling? It seems like a pump would pump out water slower than a faucet does, but I guess that depends on how powerful it is.
Also, did you need any extra parts to attach it to your immersion chiller? Or did you just push one of the barb fittings into the plastic tubing on your chiller?

The reason the pump solution interests me is that my sink doesn't have a removable endcap. I could buy a new sink head, but hardly any modern sink heads come with threaded endcaps anymore. If you want a nice looking sink head, especially the spray nozzle ones, it's not going to have a threaded cap. So a pump in a 5g bucket might be my best option.
 
Still around. Regarding flow - I've found the flow to be perfectly adequate. Once the wort starts to get closer to the temp of the water, I actually slow the flow down. My understanding is that we are chilling wort by transferring heat from wort to the water in the coil. If the water is coming out cold, you're moving the water too fast. Perhaps it would be more effective in the initial stages of chilling for the water to be moving faster, but I think its good enough. Especially for such an inexpensive pump.

As for the connection, the pump I linked to has several different hookups for the output. My chiller's vinyl tubing(.5 inch I think) fits snuggly over the flow controller valve attachment that came with it. Its a bit tight, but it works. There are several other hookups that come with it. I'm sure you'll find something in there that will work for you. If you need a pic later, pm me your email address and I'll take a pic of what I'm talking about.

Good luck

Hope that helps.
 
Cool, thanks!
By the way, I found a user-submitted image on Amazon where a guy is using the fountain pump to chill his wort:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002HFTIY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
[Edit: HBT truncates the Amazon link, so if you want to see the photo just search for "Sunterra extra large fountain pump" and click on the 4th photo].
Way cool.
 
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