Inexpensive Wart Chiller Pump Idea to Share

Yesterday I brewed ny second batch of beer. I was frustrated over how long it took me too cool dowm my wort on batch no. 1.

So I made myself the usual copper coil wort chiller. Living here in So. Cal, I did not want to hook up a garden hose and waist all of that water. So I got out my big old ice chest, froze 4 gallons of tap water, dumped that into the ice chest and filled the ice chest with water. I bought a really cheap fountain pump from Harbor Freight. Dumped that into the ice bath and circulated the water. I cooled from the boil down to 70F in under 15 minutes. Attached is a picture and the info on the pump. The bump comes with several fittings but all you need to do is cut off a piece of 3/4 ID garden hose and slip it on.

When complete, I dumped the water into the swimming pool. No wasted water.

Nice work!

I use the same pump in my recirculating glycol chiller that I used to cool one of my fermentation chambers, only mine is the wimpier version. I think it was like $9 on sale.

I have been trying to get my chiller to move the temp below 100f. Will use your idea in a sinkfull of cold water once I hit the plateau. Harbor Freight here i come!!!

Funny, I was just coming up with something similar as I wanted the water to be cooler then tap to decrease cooling times, as well as recycle the water and minimize my water waste. Since my wort chiller is set to use a garden hose, I thought to get a sump pump and drop into ice water, then have it cycle thru and dump right back into the ice water. I saw some short hoses at home depot yesterday for 6 bucks, think I will try to rig this up. Awesome!

For the price, this pump is the ticket. A smaller cooler would work just as good. The water in the one shown was still very cold when we were done.

I think you just built yourself a hopback without the hop portion. This setup is also used to circulate beer around in the mash tun if you worry about such things (which you shouldn't IMHO).

are you sure draping that towel over the wort is a good idea? I figure you were trying to keep junk from falling in it, but the dowel itself is probably dirty, and it seems hardly better than leaving it open.

A wart chiller? Like that freezing stuff to get rid of unsightly warts and blemishes?

Probably not good for your wort.

Got the pump at lunch. The discharge is smaller than I expected. Not set up for a garden hose, more for a length of vinyl tubing. Hope its the size of the vinyl on my wort chiller. If not, Need an adapter. Also, the pump will allow me to run sanitizer through the chiller after I'm done with it.

I got the towel idea from the instructions I read on a wort chiller at the local home brew shop. The towel was fresh out of the dryer and soaked in sanitizing solution for 30 min prior to use. So I think any bugs would have been deceased. It seamed better than leaving it wide open.

I think you must have picker up the smaller pump. Did you use the numbers from the PDF I posted? The one I have fits a 3/4" I.D. garden hose perfectly.

Do you use an immersion chiller? This could be a great solution because our sink faucets are too fancy to hook up a garden hose!

I've been considering the same thing for sometime. Except using a bilge pump. They can be had for a similar price but at twice the GPH. All you need is a small 12 volt battery or even a battery charger hooked up to it. You could do a lot of batches before the battery would need charged.

Yes this in an immersion chiller. Copper coil to be exact.

Nice setup. I was discussing options with my LHBS because my tap water has been running super warm lately and he was telling me to do this. Pics help a lot.

Thanks!

Psych said:

A wart chiller? Like that freezing stuff to get rid of unsightly warts and blemishes?

Probably not good for your wort.

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Psych, both WORTS on fingers and WORT (unfermented beer) are spelled the same way. Check your engrish before correcting someone else.

This is a great idea Tom. I do believe i'll be sourcing a submersible pump in the very near future. My water bill was outrageous this month!

Zixxer10R said:

Psych, both WORTS on fingers and WORT (unfermented beer) are spelled the same way. Check your engrish before correcting someone else.

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Hahaha

Um, no they're not.

According to the specs, the outlet is only .5 inches. You could use THIS though and make it work with a piece of 1/2 inch hose!

Zixxer10R said:

Psych, both WORTS on fingers and WORT (unfermented beer) are spelled the same way. Check your engrish before correcting someone else.

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Wort:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?word=wort

Wart:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?word=Wart

Hey I am an enigineer so I am not supposed to be able to schpell.

tomridder said:

Hey I am an enigineer so I am not supposed to be able to schpell.

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That's understandable... it's Zixxer who really deserves to be given a hard time

This is slightly off topic and I haven't read the entire thread yet so bare with me.

What is considered a good time to cool down 5 gallons worth of wort? My friend and I were able to cool 5 gallons of boiling wort down to 75 degrees in about 8 minutes using nothing but a container filled with ice and a little bit of water.

diddlydumper said:

This is slightly off topic and I haven't read the entire thread yet so bare with me.

What is considered a good time to cool down 5 gallons worth of wort? My friend and I were able to cool 5 gallons of boiling wort down to 75 degrees in about 8 minutes using nothing but a container filled with ice and a little bit of water.

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There are just too many variables, based on where you live, what kind if system you're using, and what temp you want to chill to, to come up with just one right answer for that.

For instance, I use a plate chiller (Blichmann Therminator), and just by transferring the wort through the chiller on its way to the fermentor, I can do it in about 5 minutes with 60° wort right now. I'm not sure how well it will work in the winter, but it will definitely be even better. However... my results are not really attainable with most systems in most locations, so it's really only a good benchmark for people who live nearby.

Zixxer10R said:

Psych, both WORTS on fingers and WORT (unfermented beer) are spelled the same way. Check your engrish before correcting someone else.

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You need to go stand in a corner and be very embarrassed.

ArcaneXor said:

You need to go stand in a corner and be very embarrassed.

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Notice i shut my mouth once i realized, and then it was hammered home, that i am a complete and udder moron right now.

i'd like to say i'd been drinking, but that just wasn't the case.

Zixxer10R said:

Notice i shut my mouth once i realized, and then it was hammered home, that i am a complete and udder moron right now.

i'd like to say i'd been drinking, but that just wasn't the case.

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(utter!) spelling police are never funny, but the FU replies are usually golden!

diddlydumper said:

This is slightly off topic and I haven't read the entire thread yet so bare with me.

What is considered a good time to cool down 5 gallons worth of wort? My friend and I were able to cool 5 gallons of boiling wort down to 75 degrees in about 8 minutes using nothing but a container filled with ice and a little bit of water.

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I'd say about 3pm.

8 minutes is a very good cold break. And you only used an ice bath? Man, you must have been sloshing that wort around like crazy.

Usually it takes my friend and I about 10-15 minutes to cool down a 5 gallon batch with a CFC, and we've never had chill haze issues.

Lightbulb! My housemates don't drain their pool, they winterize it with some sort of antifreeze (?). When the temps get down in a few months I could just toss that pump into the shallow end and not use a cooler/bucket.

Unless those chemicals (chlorine, pool shock, antifreeze stuff) do naughty things to copper? This is less and less like a good idea...

Zixxer10R said:

Psych, both WORTS on fingers and WORT (unfermented beer) are spelled the same way. Check your engrish before correcting someone else.

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Words to live by. (For some of us anyway)

I love it because this has so many things to make fun of.

1. You told him to do what you did NOT do.
2. You tried to correct him for being a spelling nazi, thereby becoming one yourself.
3. Misspelling english only diminished the impact even more of your already misinformed post.

I thank you for providing me this great entertainment this morning!

You are quite welcome. I must say, my idiocy did lead to some great replies though.

maxam said:

Lightbulb! My housemates don't drain their pool, they winterize it with some sort of antifreeze (?). When the temps get down in a few months I could just toss that pump into the shallow end and not use a cooler/bucket.

Unless those chemicals (chlorine, pool shock, antifreeze stuff) do naughty things to copper? This is less and less like a good idea...

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It's a good idea. Been doing that for 2 years now without a problem (except my wife freaks out and won't let any kids in there when the cord is coming out).

I am going to Unjack this thread.
I use a wart chiller and tap water. Usually chill from boil to 100 in about 15 minutes. Running water faster just consumes more water, as the discharge temp from the chiller is not as high. Not a noticiable increase in chill time. Once i get to 100 it seems the chiller becomes less effective, probably because I am approaching the temp of the tap water and there's less of a temp delta for the water to pick up. Therefore, the pump rate is probably not as critical as the water temp. On the next brew day I will fill 2 sinks with water. One I will add ice. Drop the pump into the tap temp sink and run the tap into it to replenish.Then when I hit the "plateau" of about 100f switch over to the ice water and move the replenish tap. I'll update when I can.

Zixxer10R said:

i am a complete and udder moron right now.

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Most of us probably are udder morons. Have the right woman whip out her set, and many of us are reduced to salivating, blubbering idiots.

I love the chiller you made. The original design is by far the most efficient. I was planning on building one far more complicated until I saw this one.

Water usage shouldn't really be a factor. The waste water can be used for other things- cleaning, strike water for a double batch, hooked to a sprinkler for the yard, etc. Also, there isn't that much water being used to start with. The first poster was worried about water usage, then says later he dumps the waste into his pool.

If you have a pool, recircing to that until the temp diff becomes too small, then switching to a recirc ice bath is the most sensible approach. He will need a bigger pump, though, or just use the hose as input then exhaust into the pool for the first cooling phase.

william_shakes_beer said:

Running water faster just consumes more water, as the discharge temp from the chiller is not as high.

On the next brew day I will fill 2 sinks with water. One I will add ice. Drop the pump into the tap temp sink and run the tap into it to replenish.Then when I hit the "plateau" of about 100f switch over to the ice water and move the replenish tap. I'll update when I can.

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Using the faucet directly for the tap temp portion will get you better flow/chilling speed. A high initial flow isn't wasting any water as long as the output temp is high. You will have to switch the chiller input to the pump output for the ice bath, but it isn't difficult.

I assume you are going to exhaust tap temp waste water somewhere. Otherwise, if recirc'd, the tap temp sink will become very hot very quickly.

Agitating the wort makes a huge difference in chill time and tap water chilling efficacy.

maxam said:

Lightbulb! My housemates don't drain their pool, they winterize it with some sort of antifreeze (?). When the temps get down in a few months I could just toss that pump into the shallow end and not use a cooler/bucket.

Unless those chemicals (chlorine, pool shock, antifreeze stuff) do naughty things to copper? This is less and less like a good idea...

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PEARL JAM!!! I was @ Alpine Valley for the fest!
(sorry, had to hi-jack, my favorite band)

cwi said:

Agitating the wort makes a huge difference in chill time and tap water chilling efficacy.

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But doesn't that introduce oxygen if the temp is > 80F?

djfake said:

But doesn't that introduce oxygen if the temp is > 80F?

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Sure isn't that the point though pre-pitch?