Submersible pump ?

I have a 50 ft. 1/2 inch immersion chiller and am wondering what size pump I need to 10-12 gallon batches. Is a 1/6 horsepower good enough?

http://www.harborfreight.com/1-2-half-hp-clear-water-pump-with-float-94648.html

This seems like a good deal but I don't know if it will be powerful enough...

With power to spare. You could get away with 1/25th HP.

I think mine's a 1hp 330gph pump. It rockets water through my 50ft chiller.

I just picked up the same pump, gonna give it a go soon.

what are you pumping water from? Does it run your water bucket dry since it pumps out way more water than your hose refill it with.

@ crlova - I have the same size immersion chiller. I can go from 200 deg to 70 in about 15 minutes. I freeze a few blocks of ice in large Tupperware containers two days before I brew. I run ground water from the hose through the chiller until the wort hits about 120 then connect the chiller to the pump. Then I recirculate the chilled water through it. Ice cold water does the trick every time and no wasting gallons of water. GREEN BREWING!

I use this pond pump from Lowes:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_8430-48650-...ctivity-_-SC_Fountains Ponds_Area2-_-49116_2

How are you guys attaching this to the wort chiller?

I recently bought a pump, and was disappointed to see it didn't have a standard garden hose attachment on the outlet.... its more like a 3/4" barb. I figure I'll have to take a trip to the hardware store to rig something that'll attach to the standard garden hose adapter on the wort chiller... any ideas?

Hose repair dealie and a section of appropriate-size hose.

944play said:

Hose repair dealie and a section of appropriate-size hose.

Click to expand...

Awesome. Thanks!

I got a brass barb I screw onto the pump. Then I just use hose clamps to attach my hose to the chiller. I'm using 3/8" ID hose and not garden hose....

I have a similar method, works best in winter. I have a IC which has garden hose fittings soldered on both ends. At flame out I hook up the sump pump so that it is in a large bucket ( or my MLT cooler) filled with ice and snow and water. The pump cycles the ice water through the wort then back to the bucket of ice. As the water rises in temp I drain some and add more ice&snow. When I hit 120F I drain the wort through a coil submerged in ice water.
All in all the system is overly complicated, because it was scavenged for free. Ideally I want to get a long 1/2" coil (75') that I can submerge in ice and drain for instant cooling. I'm not sure about the Newton's law practicality of this, but given enough ice and snow it should work. In Vermont there is ample snow and ice Dec - Mar. If it doesn't work I can always repurpose the coil as a standard IC with sump pump.
A good question comes to mind. Do most brewers use the standard IC set up versus the coil in ice water method for a good reason or because they haven't tried it?