What's the best, cheapest way of doing this? (sump pump - immersion chiller)

[Tankard]

My immersion chiller and tap water can bring my wort from boiling to 82 degrees in about 7-8 minutes. After those 8 minutes, it has a really hard time getting the temperature any lower. I've decided to buy a bucket and a sump pump setup so I can pump ice water through my immersion chiller, which will get the temperature down to 70 or so.

I've been looking at sump pumps at home depot, lowes, and a few other places and the cheapest ones I can find there are around $80. Online I can find them for $40 or so. I have a few questions though: How will I attach the pump to my immersion chiller? Are some of these pumps fitted for regular garden hose adapters? If not, how will I connect it?
Also, I found a few aquarium pumps on Ebay that are submersible and are quite a bit cheaper. Will these work? If so, how will I fit these to the immersion chiller?

Thanks.

 

[pcolson]

just get a prechiller...

 

[BarleyWater]

I use one of the drill pumps from Lowes. It's right next to the other pumps, but it's only like $8. As long as you have a good power drill, it will work fine, and it's a lot more efficient than a pre-chiller. I can get down into the 50s in minutes with mine.

 

[HighPlainsDrifter]

Get a small submersible pond pump from Lowes. They are in the garden section here. Mine cost me 19.95 and has the same size outlet as my tubing. I connected it together with some tubing and hose clamps, Works great!

 

[okstatepike]

I have a small ~500gph pump from Home Depot that I picked up for around $30. Submerge it in an ice-bath in a cooler and you can recirculate just fine. The bonus here is you don't waste near as much water by recirculating.

 

[Bobby_M]

Just don't put the first couple gallons of hot output water back into the icebath as it's counterproductive. Collect that for cleanup later. Once the output cools down, go ahead and recirc it back onto the ice. It's more efficient to top off the ice with tap water.

 

[Saccharomyces]

I'm using a 1/4 HP pump from Harbor Freight ($50). It comes with a 3/4" adapter so it hooks directly up to the chiller.

I have problems with my high water pressure blowing the tube loose on my chiller every few batches, spraying water everywhere. With the pump it isn't a problem. I fill the cooler to the top from the garden hose, pump-n-dump water until the cooler is nearly empty, refill the cooler until it is half full, then recirculate and add the ice.

 

[Bobby_M]

It's a good idea to sweat (solder) a hose barb to chiller for that reason. If not that, at least use compression fittings so that you don't rely on a a hose clamp to keep tubing on such a smooth surface.

 

[Saccharomyces]

It's a good idea to sweat (solder) a hose barb to chiller for that reason. If not that, at least use compression fittings so that you don't rely on a a hose clamp to keep tubing on such a smooth surface.

Hmm, I think I'll give the compression fittings a try. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[WBC]

If you have more hose clamps then use 2 or 3. It will not come off as each one has resistance to overcome.

 

[Bobby_M]

While we're throwing around ideas, you can also stop at an automotive repair shop and ask them to throw a little flare on the ends of the copper would seriously decrease the chance of the hose slipping off.

 

[Shonuff]

I have a 50ft immersion chiller. Same problem tap water was too warm during the summer. I bought 20ft of copper tubing from Home Depot for $20 made another immerison chiller, put the 20ft into an ice bath and connected the 20ft to the 50ft that was immersed in the beer. Works great.

 

[springer]

I'm using a 1/4 HP pump from Harbor Freight ($50). It comes with a 3/4" adapter so it hooks directly up to the chiller.

I have problems with my high water pressure blowing the tube loose on my chiller every few batches, spraying water everywhere. With the pump it isn't a problem. I fill the cooler to the top from the garden hose, pump-n-dump water until the cooler is nearly empty, refill the cooler until it is half full, then recirculate and add the ice.

Get an RV water pressure regulator from Wal-Mart it will bring the pressure down to around 14 PSI without restricting water flow I use one on my RV . Those plastic lines they use do not like high pressure.

 

[Tankard]

What do you guys think about this one? It's the cheapest I've found.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100046313&N=10000003+90048

Only 60 gallons per hour but that sounds fine for what I'm using it for. The only thing I'm concerned about is the 1/2 inch connector.

 

[eddie]

Try gently stirring the wort with a sanitized mash spoon while the IC is doing it's thing. It'll cool a lot faster.

 

[Blender]

I bought a utility pump from the local hardware store. It's this one >>>http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009XB7M8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Boy the price has gone up about $20 since I got mine last year. It has hose connectors.

 

[BierMuncher]

This is the one I got from Harbor Freight.

Works like a champ.
I've since changed to using my 10 gallon cooler to get a deeper, colder well of water:

 

[Saccharomyces]

If you have more hose clamps then use 2 or 3. It will not come off as each one has resistance to overcome.

Well I have a handful of them, so I'll give this a try first.

 

[Tankard]

This is the one I got from Harbor Freight.

Works like a champ.
I've since changed to using my 10 gallon cooler to get a deeper, colder well of water:

View attachment 7373

View attachment 7374

Looks nice Biermuncher.

Does it have a garden hose adapter? That would be ideal.