Wort chiller - no sink hook up, other alternatives?

My B-Day was a few weeks ago and i got some northern brewer gift cards totaling $150. last night i decided to make a mass purchase of various things from beer ingeredients to T-Shirts. Among them i decided to grab a wort chiller as im tired of the ice and sink meathod.

I knew all along that i would have a problem with connecting the vinyl hose to my sink faucet since its kinda "fancy" and does not allow the removal of the faucet end to thread on a hose or anything since its a detachable sprayer and faucet in one.

Im not worried about not being able to use the sink faucet im sure ill figure something out but i wanted to get the beer community in on this to see what other people have "rigged up" aside from buying an expensive pump or running the garden hose into the house.

Worst case scenario ill just hold the end of the tube to the sink faucet and see what happens. Another idea was having a cold water bucker above the kettle and start a siphon to get te water going. We'll see how that works out.

So, if anyone has some thoughts or other inexpensive ideas, please chime in.

BREW ON!

Any faucets in the laundry room? Or bathroom? My wife uses a hose to add water to the aquarium from the kitchen.

Old portable washing machines had a rubber funnel-thingy with a hose that was strapped to any kind of kitchen faucet - that might work (if you can engineer something from my silly explanation).

B

Where is your laundry room? Maybe the washer hook up would work, if it's in a convenient place. Or the bathroom sink?

In order to get this to work, it needs to connect to the faucet. Otherwise, the flow will be too slow and/or water will spray everywhere. Trust me on the "water spraying everywhere" bit, by the way!

I hooked one of these splitters by my laundry sink for using my wort chiller in the winter. The splitters is attached to where my washing machine hooks up. I bought a small 5 ft of garden hose for the inlet and another for the outlet. Works like a champ!

Or you could run a hose into the house.

birvine said:

Any faucets in the laundry room? Or bathroom? My wife uses a hose to add water to the aquarium from the kitchen.

Old portable washing machines had a rubber funnel-thingy with a hose that was strapped to any kind of kitchen faucet - that might work (if you can engineer something from my silly explanation).

B

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Laundry room is up stairs, and we dont have one of those wash room sinks.

My only other alternative is to tap into the pvc pipe under the sink and install a garden hose thats like 2 feet enough to attach the vinyl hose from the chiller on

You could always run the splitter off your cold water that your washer is connected to, just put the outlet in the washer and do a load of laundry after... Waste not want not.

mdgagne said:

You could always run the splitter off your cold water that your washer is connected to, just put the outlet in the washer and do a load of laundry after... Waste not want not.

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The washer we have is on a pedestal, that would in invole pulling the 500 pound washer out, then climbing on top to connect the hose. Def not something i wanna do that often. but thanks. ill find something....

You said fancy faucet? Does it have on of the sprayers? If so they usually screw off of the tubing and there should be a way to hook up the cooler to that. My sink has a pull out faucet that works as a sprayer. If I unscrww ir I am sure I could find the right stuff to make it work.

billf2112 said:

You said fancy faucet? Does it have on of the sprayers? If so they usually screw off of the tubing and there should be a way to hook up the cooler to that. My sink has a pull out faucet that works as a sprayer. If I unscrww ir I am sure I could find the right stuff to make it work.

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Thats the kind of faucet i have.

I bought a cheap, $15 I think, pond pump from harbor freight. Put it in a bucket of tap water and let her rip. When the water coming out the other end gets down to a reasonable temp, I throw in a bag or two of ice to finish cooling. I can get a batch from boiling to pitchable in about 15 - 20 mins.
Forgot to mention, when I add the ice, I start recirculating the output back into the bucket. This also saves on water.

Use the bathtub faucet. The big box stores sell a converter with a QD that you can hook up straight to your IC.

here is the exact faucet i have - http://www.lowes.com/pd_76790-330-F...1&facetInfo=In Stock Kitchen Faucets|2-handle

perky182 said:

I bought a cheap, $15 I think, pond pump from harbor freight. Put it in a bucket of tap water and let her rip. When the water coming out the other end gets down to a reasonable temp, I throw in a bag or two of ice to finish cooling. I can get a batch from boiling to pitchable in about 15 - 20 mins.
Forgot to mention, when I add the ice, I start recirculating the output back into the bucket. This also saves on water.

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Lots of good ideas here, but you sir, have the right one. a cheap pump. i might have to swing by there on my way home.

I think i found it - http://www.harborfreight.com/all-purpose-drill-water-pump-34302.html

Lol. This is what im talking about. Im gettin this bad boy.

I had the same problem. IMO, the best solution is tying into the cold-water copper pipe underneath the sink. A few bucks in fittings, and I now have a garden hose connection underneath my sink.

Best part is, since I tied into the 1/2" pipe, the flow is WAY better than what I'd get coming out of a faucet anyways.

The nozzle part of the faucet should unscrew. It is similar to what I have, bet it is just a simple fitting and bam, you are in business. Gonna check out doing the same thing.

This came to me the other day when my faucet was leaking and when I was looking to fix it, I saw that it was just loose. I was actually happy because I then knew I could use a wort cooler.

billf2112 said:

The nozzle part of the faucet should unscrew. It is similar to what I have, bet it is just a simple fitting and bam, you are in business. Gonna check out doing the same thing.

This came to me the other day when my faucet was leaking and when I was looking to fix it, I saw that it was just loose. I was actually happy because I then knew I could use a wort cooler.

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Not all faucets do that. Believe me, I tried... and neither my kitchen faucet, nor the one in my laundry room (which has my old kitchen faucet) is able to do so.

But after tying into the 1/2" copper pipe underneath my sink, I am so impressed by the improved flow, that even though I plan on moving soon, I will definitely be doing the same thing at my next place EVEN IF my faucet is able to accept a garden hose adapter.

OP - not sure if the faucet tip unscrews, but I was lucky that mine does. I put on an adapter. SWMBO fills the aquarium; I IC my wort. Everyone is happy.

B

The end result will still be beer, so all is good.

birvine said:

OP - not sure if the faucet tip unscrews, but I was lucky that mine does. I put on an adapter. SWMBO fills the aquarium; I IC my wort. Everyone is happy.

B

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The faucet does not unscrew. I will, however, be purchasing the drill pump from harbor freight. thanks for the help everyone.

billf2112 said:

You said fancy faucet? Does it have on of the sprayers? If so they usually screw off of the tubing and there should be a way to hook up the cooler to that. My sink has a pull out faucet that works as a sprayer. If I unscrww ir I am sure I could find the right stuff to make it work.

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Does any know the adapter you need for this? Thats the same faucet I have.

brewd00d said:

The faucet does not unscrew. I will, however, be purchasing the drill pump from harbor freight. thanks for the help everyone.

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What do you use for the water source with the drill pump? And how much water do you need?

You'll still want to run tap water for the bulk of the chilling though. The best option is to put a Tee in the cold water supply under the cabinet, then a valve with GH thread. Add some hose quick disconnects and you're in business.

Same problem. I went with at pond pump from my LHBS. I sink the pump into a cooler with a cup or two of rock salt and about 20 lbs of ice. Works very nice. This is the pump I picked up. Seems to be strong enough, and not too expensive. http://goo.gl/UG6p8

abefroman said:

What do you use for the water source with the drill pump? And how much water do you need?

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I plan on filling up one side of the sink with cold water and ice, putting the suction side in the cold water. Its my first time using a wort chiller, so I'm not sure how much water I'll need.

Whatever you do, remember.. pronouncing it "wert" makes it chill 15% faster. If you make the strangely common error of pronouncing it "wart" (sponsored by compound w?), you will have errors on brew day.

Just a tip, hehe.

I'd probably grab one of my submersible pumps from my hydroponics hobby and see if it could push enough water. They're only $15 or so, but I can't recommend because I havent tried.

+1 on what Perky182 said... Just use a pond pump in an ice bath. Its easy to set up and tear down and you don't have to make any modifications to your existing plumbing. I freeze about 4-5 large tupperware containers filled with tap water about 2 days before my brew session and dump them in the sink with my pump. I hit pitching temps in about 10-15 minutes. If you agitate the wort with the IM chiller it does double duty; aeration and faster heat transfer.

I have one of those drill powered pumps and they are a pain to use. If you absolutely don't want to tee into your cold water supply (best option in my opinion) then getting a submersible pump and letting it run while you match the flow with your faucet would be easier. It takes a pretty decent amount of water usually to chill.

I use a 4.5 gallon per minute pond pump with sink filled with ice water at 32* takes about 8-10 minutes tap water not a good option as it's 73*most times. Start ice bath at the 15 minute left hop addition which allows ice and water to equal out...........my.02

I have the exact same problem with my kitchen sink, no way to connect to it.
Under the sink I installed a compression 3/8 Tee to split the cold water line. One side of the Tee went back to it's normal route. The other leg of the Tee goes to a 3' SS Braided Line (Dishwasher hookup kit, $15 for the line and some misc connectors.). At the end of that line I put an inline valve, then a 3/8 barb to connect to vinyl tubing. To chill my wort I reach under the sink, grab the length of coiled line off of it's hook, pull it up, hook it up, and turn the valve.

When the wort get to 90~100, I have a small aquarium pump ($30) that sits in one of the sinks filled with icewater and I just switch over to that.
It can't push nearly as much water through the chiller as tap pressure can, but it's helps get things really cold.

$5 3/8" Compression Tee
$15 3' 3/8" Braided line
$6 3/8" compression inline shutoff valve
$6 1' 3/8" Braided line (acting as a F-F adapter past the shutoff)
$6 3/8" compression to 3/8" threaded
$7 3/8 Barb Adapter
(Yeah, once I add things up, it's more $$$ than I thought it was.. But very convenient.)

$30 Submersible Aquarium pump (Get the biggest heaviest you can afford)

I did something similar, using only rigid copper pipe. They were all things a friend had as spare stuff lying around, but if you can sweat fittings, it can easily cost you less than $10. My setup only uses sweat fittings and goes like this:

Tee -> pipe -> ball valve -> pipe -> male garden hose adapter

Simple as that.

brewd00d said:

I plan on filling up one side of the sink with cold water and ice, putting the suction side in the cold water. Its my first time using a wort chiller, so I'm not sure how much water I'll need.

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I just completed a brew yesterday... I used my submersible pond pump to pump (salted) ice water from a cooler, through my chiller, and into a 5 gallon bucket. I cooled 5.5 gals of wort to 70 degrees, and filled my 5 gallon bucket 2 and a half times... for what it's worth.

I posted a tread that might be helpful...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/faucet-adaptor-garden-hose-356265/

Would anyone have a step by step guide to installing a garden hose adapter to the cold water inlet under my sink? I'm kinda stupid at this plumbing stuff and can't figure it out myself :/