Wort chilling with a pump

[zoder]

Greetings,

I've read quite a bit about chilling wort.

I brew on my balcony, and I chill in the kitchen with a copper immersion chiller (carrying hot electric brewpot is kind of a ***** with all the cables sticking out).

I was thinking of buying a pump and using a bucket on the balcony (with ice?) to recirculate the water.

Can I get some feedback as to why I shouldn't do it? Or how to improve it.

 

[mtnagel]

I haven't done it, but I've heard of people doing it before. I've heard you can use a small, submersible pump to pump the water through the chiller.

 

[Indian_villager]

A friend of mine does this. It works out great. He uses a 400 or so gph pump from Tetra. You can find similar submersible pumps from amazon.

 

[vraftsman]

I hope someone else can check my math on this but based on an infusion of cold water to bring your boiling down to 70°, you would need about 19 gallons of ice water at 32°. Obviously you will not be infusing, but I think the heat capacity of the total system should be roughly the same.

Just pointing out out that you may need more ice on hand than you planned, but again, someone check my math...

 

[zoder]

I hope someone else can check my math on this but based on an infusion of cold water to bring your boiling down to 70°, you would need about 19 gallons of ice water at 32°. Obviously you will not be infusing, but I think the heat capacity of the total system should be roughly the same.

I don't feel that is critical for me. I am willing to take my time. I just feel really uneasy carrying a pot through the apartment while there is hot liquid sloshing around. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to prevent that since it's the most stressful moment of my brew day.

 

[vraftsman]

I don't feel that is critical for me. I am willing to take my time. I just feel really uneasy carrying a pot through the apartment while there is hot liquid sloshing around. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to prevent that since it's the most stressful moment of my brew day.

In that case I say go for it.

My other suggestion would be to get a few hoses, depending on how far your balcony is from the sink. fit your IC with hose fittings and run one supply and one drain hose all the way from the kitchen to the balcony and back. I would think that hoses and a few conversion barbs would still be cheaper than a pump, and probably faster chill, (fast chill = clear beer,) than using a small submersible pump. this is all theory though. I haven't tried chilling this way.

 

[jbaysurfer]

You'll want to do this in 3 tiers (based on my experience with this technique)
Tiers one and two require you to fill a 5G bucket with cold tap water (as cold as you can get it) and when the temperature of the bucket water and the wort approach equilibrium (10-15 degrees I'd say) switch to the 2nd tier/bucketfull of water. When that stage is done you'll probably be close to 90F or so, then run it through your ice water.

If you put ice in the water when the wort is still at 200F it's just a waste of ice.

Another option, is to merely sump pump in the tier one bucket (I don't know why I went with this "tier" speak, but wth, I'm almost done with the post anyway ) until the wort is down below 110 then move it inside..so at least the burn danger will be decreased.

GL! It's totally doable, just plan on 3 buckets worth of water, and you can use the hot water from the tier one bucket for cleaning. It's a way to recapture some of the energy you paid for to heat the wort in the first place.

 

[Wynne-R]

someone check my math...

I think vraftsman ignored the heat of fusion.

I calculate 33 ½ lbs of ice to go from boiling to 68° F.

It goes like this: 5 gallons is approx. equal to 18.928 L

Going from 100° C boiling to 20° C is 80 degrees. 80* 18.928 = 1514240 calories

If we take a gram of ice to 20°C that will take 79.72 Calories to melt the ice and another 20 calories to heat it to 20° .

Are we having fun? Almost done.

1,514,240 / 99.72 = 15,185 grams of ice or about 33 ½ pounds.

This ignores any other losses, but it should be a pretty good approximation. I cool mine in the bathtub until it’s warm, then use about ten pounds of ice with an ice bucket, a submergible pump and an immersion chiller. It takes about 30 minutes to melt the ice and get to pitching temp after pre-chilling in the bathtub.

 

[two_hearted]

I do this all the time. I use the hose to get it down below 130 or so, then pump ice water with this guy: http://www.harborfreight.com/200-gph-miniature-submersible-fountain-pump-68372.html

Great little pump for $10.

 

[Brett3rThanU]

For those of you that use the pump, do you get good water flow? I tried this and the water was pretty slow to pump through the coil.

 

[Yesfan]

I've thought about this one from Amazon.

link


Might not be as powerful as what's been suggested, but it would do double duty as the pump in a carboy/keg washer. (link)

 

[plumber_bob]

I have a 70 quart extreme cooler and fill it with 66lbs of ice. Then add 5 gal of water. It has a ball valve with a bazooka screen to keep from restricting the flow.
The first water that goes through it ends up in hlt for heating to clean. Them after it cools down add it back to the cooler.

Cools down to 60-70 I'm 15 to 20 min.

pb

 

[grathan]

I would consider running a water hose from the kitchen to the balcony.