The most efficient way to cool wort

Jcoz said:

The first batching used only tap water running it through the chiller. Second time I used tap water for a while, then switched to recirculating ice water from a six gallon bucket, draining water and adding ice as needed.

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Sorry missed your comment yesterday and realize this point has already been make by now. Recirculating hot water back into the bucket will melt the ice faster. Discharge it and replace the ice bucket water with fresh cool water. Sounds like that's your next plan. Good luck!

Here's my method, it works great for me even in the summer when my tap water is in the mid 90's. First I run tap water through my IC to bring my 5 gallon batch down below 140 (I stir with a spoon when I need to really churn it to add O2, and stir with the IC when I don't). I collect this water in my mash tun for cleaning. Once it's in the 120-140 range I start connect the IC to my pond pump that's sitting in a cooler with 15-20lbs of ice and recirculate through that until I'm down in the 60 - 70*F range. The whole process usually takes less than 30 minutes even in our hot AZ summers (15 min or less in the winter).

A cheap aftermarket transmission cooler works great.

+1 on the pond pump. I live in the south and 80 F tap water is not unheard of, so it is a struggle to get the wort below 85 F with it 100 F outside. I now put a few butter dishes of water in the freezer the day before I brew. Then, I dump that ice into a bucket with enough water to cover my pond pump. Place my pond pump in the water, and circulate that ice water through my coil and back into the bucket. It takes the wort from 110 to 65 F in about 10 to 15 minutes.

Thank goodness it is cooling off now.