How do you save your cooling water?

[NickTheGreat]

I almost always do two 5 gallon batches in a brew day. So I will use the discharged cooling water to fill my next batch's water needs. Then I’ll use it to do any rinsing/cleaning I can do, especially in the second batches cooling. Then I’ll water some flowers if it’s not too hot. Otherwise, I’ll just hook an estate sale sprinkler up to it and water the yard.

I’ve also thought about filling a kiddie pool full of it, but I generally prefer to brew without my kids around . . .

 

[ckil]

I use an aquarium pump in cooler with ice water. I let the first few gallons go into a separate bucket for hot cleaning water then move the return tube to the cooler to create a closed loop.

 

[RufusBrewer]

I have awful warm ground water here in southern AZ, so I would love to see what others are doing to drop their cooling water temps. I've tried running the ground water through a 'pre-cooler' coil that's in an ice water bucket, but that doesn't seem to make a huge difference.

I push Straight tap water through my immersion chiller until it drops to about 100°. Then I switch and pump ice water through my IM using a $25.00 bilge pump.

I try to collect the exhaust water and use it on my grass and plants. In the rainy season, this is not worth the effort.

 

[tripelthelightfantastic]

I get about 100L waste water from my RO system that goes into 25L buckets onto the balcony the night before brew day.
During autumn and winter those buckets are zero or slightly frozen and get pumped through an immersion chiller back into buckets for cleaning later