Home-made immersion wort-chiller pump?

[Nephron]

You-tube has some nice demos on making a wort-chiller. But they call for a garden hose as water source (and drain). My kitchen faucet won't fit one.

So I'm thinking about attaching an aquarium pump that can draw from a sink full of water. Has anybody tried this? What volume per minute should the pump be able to handle? My first look at the store found a middle-sized pump that pushes 70 gal/h. If this really does get the job done in 1/4 hr, then I'd move at least 17.5 gal (much more than a sink- full) so I'd have to recirculate ice-water or run water into the source sink and send the output to a second drain (double sink).

 

[theonetrueruss]

a lot of people use cheap pond pumps to push ice water through immersion chillers. I'm sure there is a thread out there somewhere with recommendations.

 

[Nephron]

Thanks, I should have thought of Google first. Found a good thread in another forum. The important info was:
-needs much more flow than I thought. Think 20 gal/min, or a 1/6th HP submersible pump
-don't make the pump raise the water, keep reservoir and wort tank at same level

 

[kegtoe]

I use my Marks Keg Cleaner pump to push ice water through my immersion chiller. I recently built a new 50' so I use my old 25' as a pre chiller in its own bucket of ice water.

 

[WI_Wino]

I just got a 1/3 hp used sump pump from Amazon, $22 w/ prime shipping. About to use it tonight for it's inaugural wort chilling. You need to search for amazon warehouse deals, lots of cheap stuff. Usually just damaged packaging. There was a 1/2 hp one for about the same price but didn't come with a garden house adapter. I did a quick search but didn't see any smoking deals right now but it changes daily.

EDIT - quick update, this sucker can push some water! Good thing I was in the garage, when I plugged in the pump the discharge hose popped right out of my 55 gallon barrel and started shooting water all over. I got about the same cooling time as when I ran a hose from a faucet. My well water temp is usually mid 50s F year round. The water I recirculated with tonight had a thin layer of ice on it so figure mid 30s. Nice to not have to deal with frozen hoses and water discharging into the driveway tonight.

 

[thaymond]

This may be something related. I just built a dual purpose wort chiller/fermentation vessel using an old 5 gallon Rubbermaid, a Johnson control, a garbage picked marine cooler, some plastic hose fittings, my ic, and my pool cover pump. The cover pump was $20, plastic fittings were $12,and everything else was on hand.

View attachment 1421556385910.jpg

It's ugly, but it works like a charm. Cooled wort to pitching Temps in about 30 minutes (my ic is a small diy pos) AND it was able to keep my beer at a consistent 66°F during our recent IL deep freeze in the garage. Garage Temps were 26-34°F.

The cover pump is submersible, so to cool I fill the Marine cooler with cold water, hook the pump to the ic with hose clamps and tubing, and it cycles the cold water through the ic, and the warmed water ejects into the cooler, to be circulated and pumped again. Without ice, I cooled to pitching Temps. I did empty and replace 15 gallons of cold water once. If I had some ice at the time, that wouldn't have been necessary.