Ice water pump

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SevenBirch

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Thinking of getting pump to run ice water through immersion chiller. I'm good witg tap water foe now, but looking forward to summer. Any advise on size of pump? Well not size, I should say power as in flow rate. How many gallons per hour dose it need to have to chill with a decent amount of efficiency?

Thanks.
 
OK so small cheap pump will do ok. Don't need 800 gph money sucking pump. So price of pump is lower than making a second chiller to use as pre-chiller through ice bucket. I think with price of copper the chiller I made was around $25-$30.

Any thoughts on which works better and/or which is easier on brew day? Pumping ice water vs. pre chiller, an epic battle!
 
I've done pre-chiller and done ice water pump. Pump is much faster and requires less ice. I put ice, water and the pump into a small igloo cooler. I run tap water through my immersion chiller until I get to 80-90F, or some where near tap water temp when the chilling begins to really slow down. Then I hook my chiller up to the pump, stir occasionally, and it's done. Very rarely need to add more ice to the cooler, and it uses less water than the pre-chiller. Pre-chiller defeated!
 
Run the water that comes out of the immersion chiller back into the cooler with the pump. I usually fill my cooler up with as much ice as I can and then add enough water so the water level submerges the pump. I turn on the pump and then add tap water to keep the pump submerged until the water recirculates from the chiller.
 
Tried that pump. It didn't have enough power to pump the ice water through 50' of 1/2" copper. I ended up taking it back and getting this one:

http://www.harborfreight.com/16-horsepower-submersible-utility-pump-68422.html

That's my exact setup - 50' of 1/2" copper immersion chiller. And the line from the pump to the chiller and vice-versa is 1/2" inner diameter reinforced vinyl tubing. It works fine for me. These are cheap pumps, maybe you got a dud. Someone was telling me a lot of the stuff from Harbor Freight is reconditioned, so the quality is not the best. How high did you have to pump to? i.e. how far below the chiller was your pump. I put my pump level with my pot so I don't need the pump to work as hard pushing the water up.
 
That's my exact setup - 50' of 1/2" copper immersion chiller. And the line from the pump to the chiller and vice-versa is 1/2" inner diameter reinforced vinyl tubing. It works fine for me. These are cheap pumps, maybe you got a dud. Someone was telling me a lot of the stuff from Harbor Freight is reconditioned, so the quality is not the best. How high did you have to pump to? i.e. how far below the chiller was your pump. I put my pump level with my pot so I don't need the pump to work as hard pushing the water up.

The pump was in a bucket on the floor, the pot was sitting on the burner, three foot rise at max to the top of the IC. I had about 7-1/2 feet of garden hose on each side between the chiller and the pump/bucket. Shorter hoses and raising the pump may have allowed it to work, who knows?
 
Well my chiller is just 25ft with 3/8 pipe. So smaller pump could be OK since just half the IC length you two have.

Any thoughts on could it have too much flow? Certain flow rate would be too fast to allow for good heat transfer? If not I'll just get Max power pump my budget allows at the time.
 
Any thoughts on could it have too much flow? Certain flow rate would be too fast to allow for good heat transfer? If not I'll just get Max power pump my budget allows at the time.

Well, there really isn't such a thing as too much flow to allow for good heat transfer. I think you mean efficient heat transfer. Faster flow will always cool faster than slower flow if the input water temp is a constant. When using a pump like you intend, the faster the flow the better, although there are diminishing returns when the flow gets to a certain point. The more important thing is to get the wort moving around the coils by stirring the pot.
 
Well my chiller is just 25ft with 3/8 pipe. So smaller pump could be OK since just half the IC length you two have.

Any thoughts on could it have too much flow? Certain flow rate would be too fast to allow for good heat transfer? If not I'll just get Max power pump my budget allows at the time.

I don't think you could have too much flow. When I'm cooling with water from a hose, I have some concern about how much water I'm using so I try to balance flow with efficiency. But if you are recyling the water from an ice bath, I would think the faster the better.
 
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