Office water cooler to chill??

[Tex2Ten]

I recently got my hands on an office style water cooler...the kind that you put the bottles upside down on.

I wonder if there's some way I could utilize it to chill my wort.

Any thoughts?

 

[Homercidal]

Sounds like a hassle.

I am not terribly familiar with the coolers that chill bottled water, but some years back when I was a lad I got my hands on a pair of water fountains from the old school. They were designed to chill water for drinking. The amount of water needed to chill to slake a thirst is MUCH less then the amount of water needed to chill a batch of beer.

If that cooler is anything like that water fountain, there is no way it could keep up with chilling 5 gallons of beer. (Well, not in a reasonable amount of time, anyway).

My personal opinion is that you would be better off spending that time and effort on a fountain pump and a bucket of ice water like a lot of other people. It's a proven technology and pretty inexpensive.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I don't see how you'd keep it sanitized, either...

 

[Hopper5000]

I would imagine it can't handle boiling water through the chilling part

 

[cowboy1]

You may be able to circulate a cooler of water through it when you start your brew day until it reaches 50 or so and use that water to cool your wort. Might save on the ice purchase?

 

[Tex2Ten]

I've been looking at how these things work and I believe y'all are right. I can't use it for chilling wort, but I believe there is some use for all these components. I got it free and haven't actually tested it yet to see if it works, but it has a hot water spigot and heated hot water reservoir, a cold water spigot and cold water reservoir and all the electrical and cooling apparatus you would need for said functions. I dunno, is it worth keeping or just ditch it?

 

[shortyz]

oh on another note. our lab plated the water from those bottle water coolers. and it came up with a HUGE amount of colonies, enough that it wasnt able to count.

they are disgusting things, drink tap water.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I dunno, is it worth keeping or just ditch it?

Probably worth keeping...

...but only as a water cooler.

 

[bobeer]

You could use it for tea or something too. I'm not sure how those things work or how easy they are to clean though.... I'd think if you made a ton of tea you could then have it either hot or cold. Maybe infuse it with different spices/fruit/etc. Idk just thinking about something other than just water you could do with it.

 

[Tex2Ten]

Uh...ok......well...I think we may have wandered off the...ok...look...uh......