Immersion chiller alternatives?

[r4dyce]

It doesn't look like I'd be able to use an immersion chiller because it won't fit on any of my faucets. Besides that it also looks like a huge waste of water.
These days I mostly do 3 gallon biab batches full boil. Ice bath works ok but takes significant time, anything to speed it up would be helpful. Is there some reasonable alternative to an immersion chiller?

 

[Kent88]

I also make 3-gallon batches and use the ice bath method to chill it. I go through a couple 10lb bags of ice to chill as quickly as I can.

Its cold after 20lbs of ice melts, but it does take a while. I usually use that time to sanitize the fermenter and everything.

But I would like to chill down faster and do not have a faucet that can handle an immersion chiller.

If you are a real DIYer, I've wondered if you could make one spiral for the kettle and one for a cooler to be filled with ice. Then hook them up with an appropriately sized/powered pump. Not sure how well that would work, but it is something.

 

[MaxStout]

If you have a DIY bent, you could set up an IC with recirculator. The IC, some tubing, a small pump and a bucket of ice water. Little water waste and you don't have to connect to a faucet. There are some threads here on HBT that discuss this.

 

[jalc6927]

Recirculate ice water in a cooler through the immersion chiller works great

You need a pump and garden hose

I get 5 gallons to 60 degrees in 15 minutes

 

[ESBrewer]

By the way, ice bath will speed up significantly when you whirlpool the wort a bit. This way tiny batches actually cool down so quickly that I have started to wonder whether I need chiller for so small amounts of wort (1.5gal only). Probably will build a small chiller in the future anyway. You can also put some water-filled, frozen & sanitized (metallic) item in the kettle and stir the wort with it. You could even throw some fixed amount of ice straight into the kettle if you are able to make ice from boiled water under conditions where it stays uncontaminated. When you know the evaporation rate, this ice could compensate the lost volume during the boil and gravity would stay the same. There are many ways to cool it down.

 

[PADave]

Made my own chiller out of 25' of copper tubing, some clear tube to connect it and a small fountain pump. The pump goes into a cooler of ice water. The first hot water is saved for cleanup, then once down below 120 or so I just recirculate back into the cooler.

 

[RM-MN]

It doesn't look like I'd be able to use an immersion chiller because it won't fit on any of my faucets. Besides that it also looks like a huge waste of water.
These days I mostly do 3 gallon biab batches full boil. Ice bath works ok but takes significant time, anything to speed it up would be helpful. Is there some reasonable alternative to an immersion chiller?

Since some of us are successful with doing a no-chill beer, the fast cooling is likely needed mostly to keep the flavor and aroma hops from turning into bittering hops. Since the hop oils keep adding bittering until the wort cools below about 170F, chilling quickly is important in this range. You will keep losing aroma until the beer is quite cool but the rate of loss keeps going down as the beer cools. I'd suggest that you use a tub of water to set your brew pot in and add some ice to speed the initial cooling, then either add more ice to keep it cooling faster or let it just cool without.