Recirculate Counterflow Chilling

[Rodspe1968]

I have limited spots in my home to connect the Grainfather counterflow chiller. I was thinking of using a pump to create a self contained system where ice water was pumped through the chiller and recirculated over ice to keep it cold during the entire cooling process. Has anyone else done this? Is it viable?

 

[mongoose33]

Yes, and yes.

What is common is for people to use tap water to cool from boiling down to around 100 degrees, and then switch to an icewater setup like you describe to get them the rest of the way.

The key to these things working is temperature differential, but if you try to chill boiling wort w/ ice water, you'll find that water and ice warms up fairly fast. Of course, if you have a LOT of ice and water capacity, it'll stay cold enough.

 

[Rodspe1968]

Maybe a 2 tiered system with top bucket full of ice draining into lower bucket that feeds the pump? Do you think this would reduce flow rate too much? Assume I would need to start with enough water to ensure the pump doesn't run dry... I'm trying to avoid the need for running water/drain.

 

[Paladen]

I have a closed system, but it takes a 55 gal drum of water, and an ice chest with about 15 lbs of ice & water. The process is:
Recirculating water from the drum to the heat exchanger in the chilled water ice chest then through the CF chiller and back to the drum. It wiil take 5 gal of wort from 210 deg to the mid 60's in about 30 min.

 

[mongoose33]

Maybe a 2 tiered system with top bucket full of ice draining into lower bucket that feeds the pump? Do you think this would reduce flow rate too much? Assume I would need to start with enough water to ensure the pump doesn't run dry... I'm trying to avoid the need for running water/drain.

Here's an idea: you could test out such a system simply with boiling water, no beer involved. See what you can and cannot do with your idea, how long it takes, etc. No beer at risk, and you'll certainly learn something.

Take pics and post them here so we can learn, too.