Hey guys, I thought I would post my own thread so I can start to get the skinny on recirculation chilling. I currently use a Therminator and regular tap water to get my kettle down to tap temperatures of anywhere from 60-75*F. This works perfectly for ales and I am happy, but I waste a lot of water. I have been researching threads and websites about recirculating ice water baths and they all seem great except the fact you have to use so much ice, and in most cases you have to use tap water to get under 100*F before you start using the ice bath. I am wondering about another approach.
What if you could freeze the entire cooler you were going to use for chilling and make it so that your pump had a place to fit down into the solid ice block. If you fed the return to an opposite side it would have to run over ice before reentering the pump and then the Therminator. I am more interested in getting below 140*F fast, but secondarily I would like longevity out of the chiller/cooler combo and wouldn't care if it took longer to get to lager temps as long as I could get there on one cooler. What do you guys think? I have been slammed with ideas from the a/c glycol chiller reservoirs to the constantly changed ice water baths. Do I have a feasible idea here?
Just for the record and sake of argument, I will recirculate back into the kettle until the final pass would get me to lager pitching temperatures.
What if you could freeze the entire cooler you were going to use for chilling and make it so that your pump had a place to fit down into the solid ice block. If you fed the return to an opposite side it would have to run over ice before reentering the pump and then the Therminator. I am more interested in getting below 140*F fast, but secondarily I would like longevity out of the chiller/cooler combo and wouldn't care if it took longer to get to lager temps as long as I could get there on one cooler. What do you guys think? I have been slammed with ideas from the a/c glycol chiller reservoirs to the constantly changed ice water baths. Do I have a feasible idea here?
Just for the record and sake of argument, I will recirculate back into the kettle until the final pass would get me to lager pitching temperatures.