Would a manual pump do the job? I mean it is lame to pump manually for 30 minutes...but I dont mind the extra sweat. I mean if I find a way to hook a manual pump to this wort chiller, then it should work...right?
The reason why I am trying so hard to make this wort....is because icy water must chill it a lot faster than tap water.
Yes u could use a manual pump as long as u sanitizer it appropriately, it is safe for food grade applications and it can handle temperatures above boiling. But if you do us a pump, ur not looking at 30 minutes of manual pumping, more around 10 minutes because this will chill it fast.
Ive seen set ups on here of people getting separate buckets that are the same general size as fermenation buckets. Adding 3-4 bags of ice from turkey hill or sheetz or whatever, adding some water and some salt (Think the stuff u use for your driveway in the winter) and getting their 5 gallons of wort down to pitching temp quicker then using this type of setup as an immersion chiller which is its intended purpose.
She's 100% correct that its gonna melt the ice quickly but the salt will allow that water to get below 32 degrees which will really help cool the wort down that is leaving the output end and going into ur fermentor.
This is my counterflow that i bought on amazon...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004D50LO8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
25 feet of copper piping surrounded by 25 feet of garden hose. Now consider this and compare it to the setup i mentioned above. I used this recently with my last batch of beer. tap water temp was 55 degrees (im blessed with very chilly tap water almost year round) and by the time the wort left my BK around 200 or so degrees and went thru all 25 feet of copper piping after my tap water in the hose worked its magic, the wort going into my fermentor was 59 degrees. I actually had to put the fermentor in my ferm chamber and warm it up before i pitched.
All in all i used about 7 gallons of cold water from my tap so it is a very efficient method. Im sure it won't be as cold when i finally add a chugger pump to get it pushing thru the lines quicker, but for now, gravity feeding it thru the chiller had it at or below pitching temps by the time it hit the fermentor.