Immersion chiller question

Hey guys. I haven't been around in a while. Hope everyone is doing well
I have a question that hopefully someone can answer.
I am trying to figure out a cheap way to chill wort rapidly down to 50 or below when I make my lagers. I have toyed around with the idea of buying another immersion chiller and submerging it in a bucket of ice water. Then running ground water out of a spigot, through the submerged chiller, and them into my existing chiller in the wort. Any one ever tried it before?

Thats how I used to do it, before I went to a CFC. I purchased it with the prechiller. It worked great.

Spend the money on a 500 GPH submersible pump instead. Drop that directly into the icewater bucket and pump it through your chiller.

Cool...thanks. That's a heck-of-a-lot cheeper than buying a pump and all the nescessary fittings.

Prechillers, yeah, I know some people have used them. They're a necessity for a lot of folks in hoter climates. The other thing that I'm planning on doing soon is to hook up a cheap pump to the chiller so once I've got the wort down to ~80° or so (the easy part), I can recirc ice water through the chiller. That's how I've seen The Good Kaiser chill his worts down before pitching.

Might be a little cheaper to go that route rather than buying a buttload more copper. Just need to figure out how big a pump I would need (doesn't have to be a fancy, food-grade March pump, I'm thinking just a pond pump, it's only going to be pumping water). That and a couple disconnects, I'll be golden.

I just did a google search and found thishttp://www.premiumpowersports.com/Rule-500-GPH-Submersible-Bilge-pump-p-261.html

This 200GPH pump from Lowe's rocks. I only need 2 20# bags from Sam's club and it works great.

I've been meaning to ask the question, is 200 GPH enough? I'm not smart enough to wire up up the pump from the marine supply place without killing myself, so I'm looking at buying a pump. 500 GPH pumps at Lowes/Depot/etc. are getting pretty near half the price of a full-bore March pump (which would then let me get out the CFC I have collecting dust). But, 200 GPH, we're getting to a reasonable price.

Thanks for posting the pics, EdWort. This project is on my to-do list before summer comes along.

The pump option is actually cheaper than the copper would be for a prechiller and I promise it will work better too.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=54517

Bobby_M said:

The pump option is actually cheaper than the copper would be for a prechiller and I promise it will work better too.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=54517

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It is totally irrational of me to be scared of buying items that are HALF the price of "retail"?

I'm always nervous about the prices at Harbor Freight but for this one, you'll only be using it for 30 minutes a few times a month. I'd say go for it.

Gotta love a store full of cheap crap from China.

Ugh, I can just feel my father's disappointment... "Buy it once, son!"

$8 shipping (no Harbor Freights nearby) might tip me towards looking elsewhere.

the_bird said:

I've been meaning to ask the question, is 200 GPH enough? I'm not smart enough to wire up up the pump from the marine supply place without killing myself, so I'm looking at buying a pump. 500 GPH pumps at Lowes/Depot/etc. are getting pretty near half the price of a full-bore March pump (which would then let me get out the CFC I have collecting dust). But, 200 GPH, we're getting to a reasonable price.

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The pump cost 30 bucks or so and came with the garden hose adapters. 200 GPH drops me from 100 degress to the 60s in 5 minutes.

It attaches directly to a garden hose? I might just have to get one instead of wasting all that water...

Yeah, not having to buy a NPT to GH adapter makes it even sweeter.

One tip I'd suggest is that if you're not planning on knocking the boiling temp down first with straight tap water, it would be best NOT to dump the warmed chiller output back into the ice bucket but rather let fresh garden hose water top up the ice bucket. I'd rather have 80F tap hitting the ice rather than 140F chiller exhaust. Collect that warmed water into a bucket for cleaning later.

You know, I've been running the hot water from the chiller's "first runnings" down the sides of my kettle while it's still hot. Sizzles like crazy for a minute or so. Not sure how much of a difference it makes, but taking a little bit of the heat out of the metal itself has got to help, right?

I'm sure it helps, but I won't do it because it will get my purdy new brewstand all wet.

I use well water for my first 100 degrees. The exaust goes to the wet weather creek where it pooles & cools. Birds, deer, & other animals enjoy it. What's left goes back to the water table. Seems like a good use to me.

EdWort said:

I use well water for my first 100 degrees. The exaust goes to the wet weather creek where it pooles & cools. Birds, deer, & other animals enjoy it. What's left goes back to the water table. Seems like a good use to me.

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I always save the first gallon to throw on my neighbor's cat, who likes to use my truck hood for a scratching post. Here kitty, kitty.

the_bird said:

I've been meaning to ask the question, is 200 GPH enough? I'm not smart enough to wire up up the pump from the marine supply place without killing myself, so I'm looking at buying a pump. 500 GPH pumps at Lowes/Depot/etc. are getting pretty near half the price of a full-bore March pump (which would then let me get out the CFC I have collecting dust). But, 200 GPH, we're getting to a reasonable price.

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I am currently using a CFC with gravity feed and it seems to drain through it just fine. I brewed yesterday with it, had the keggle on the turkey fryer, the CFC on the ground and the tube run down to my basement (so 6' drop or so into my carboy on a rolling stand) and it pulled really well through it, I'd say maybe 10 minutes for all of it to drain through.

wildwest450 said:

I always save the first gallon to throw on my neighbor's cat, who likes to use my truck hood for a scratching post. Here kitty, kitty.

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You need a sunroof like this.

[youtube]Gz-sC-vSIXk[/youtube]

If you have some sort of fermentation chiller there's nothing wrong with cooling to 70 degrees F as normal and then using the fermentation chiller to cool it the rest of the way in a couple hours. It will take some extra time, but it won't hurt your beer at all.

I use a 1/2 hp utility pump from Sears. I brew 20 gallon batches and use a large 30 gallon garbage bin to hold my ice blocks/water. I recently tried to cool a 20+gal to 50 degrees. I was only able to get to 65 before I ran out of ice. I also use a agitator to help with even cooling and it creates a nice whirlpool effect. One more trick I do, I use some wire screen placed inside the very bottom of the chiller. I captures most of the hops before it can settle down near my bazooka screen. Another item, I also use high temp tubing instead of garden hose. The garden hose had a tendency to kink on the output side.

Not a bad idea but I looked at the tag on the hose that I bought and it says contains lead