What size pump would I need for my wort chiller?

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Andysam

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So, I want to buy a pond pump and put it in an ice chest with ice water and pump the ice water through my wort chiller and back into the ice chest. I have a 25' wort chiller and the water will have to travel up into and up out of my keggle (keg) brew pot. What gpm pump do you think I should use?
Thanks!
 
I use a basic MD320 60 gal, (I thought it was 200 gal) I got at a hardware store also with around a 25 ft chiller. I first pump it into my washing machine until the temp gets down to around 100, then I recirculate into the ice water.
Works great for me, best of luck.
 
I use the smallest submersible I could get at HD, about 75 bucks. I used to return the hot to the ice, but now I run hose water into my chest cooler full of ice as 'make up' water - I can cool 20 gallons of wort NP in a single pass at 1 gpm through my therminator that way, straight to the conical.

returning the hot used water to the ice just melts the ice too damn fast IMO. You need prolly 3 or 4 times the ice if you do that.
 
gotcha, it makes sense not to return the hot water to the chest
 
I use this nifty (and cheap!) pump from Harbor Freight (image is linky):



190 GPH, 59" lift. With 30-40 pounds of ice and 1½ gallons of water, and recirculating the hot water back into the ice-chest to re-cool, I can bring 4 gallons of boiling wort to 70°F in under 10 mins and still have enough ice left over in the water to chill my boiled top-off water in the ice-chest.
 

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