Recirculating Immersion Wort Chiller

[Biking_Brewer]

I'd like to make an recirculating immersion wort chiller using a pond pump. This would help me avoid turning my driveway into a skating rink during the winter months as well as save water. Right now my immersion wort chiller has garden hose fittings on both ends, so ideally I'd be able to run a short garden hose from the pump to the chiller and then another short hose from chiller back to water tub. Any suggestions? I have a Lowes and Home Depot here in town so suggestions specific to these stores would be appreciated.

 

[Rowdy]

I don't have a pic right now but when I made mine I put a T in the inlet side of the ic. One arm of the T has a hose with garden hose fitting and a inline on off valve the other t has an inline on off valve and a hose running to a pond pump. I run the ic for a bit then switch it to the recirc by turning one valve on and the other off. Pond pump goes in a bucket of ice water.

 

[Stankonia]

I wouldn't start recirculating right off the bat with ice water...you'd run through a lot of ice..and whatever your ground temps may be are low enough when starting the cooling.

I have a submersible pump (about $40) that I stick into a cooler full of water (at ground temp). The outflow of my IC goes into my HLT so that I am able to use that water for cleaning. I have a normal hose from my ground water supply refilling the cooler as the pump is draining it. After about 5-10 minutes, I move my pump from the regular ground water to a separate cooler with an ice water bath. At this point I just stick the outflow hose of my IC into that same water bath and let it recirculate.

No wasted water, minimal amount of ice since I am starting with my ground water, and having a separate vessel for my pump with ice water allows the water to pre-chill getting it to a lower temp for cooling. Simply adding ice to your water source won't be as effective.

So basically don't start recirculating until you have cooled the wort down a decent amount. While you are doing that it's not hard to collect the water you are using in something else which could be used later. Once you are ready to recirculate move the pump to an ice water bath. You're wort will be cooled in at least 20 minutes.

 

[Diver165]

I too wasn't wanting to turn my driveway and street into a ice rink. I have used my IC connected to a pond pump that is in a cooler with water and ice. I just connected the pump to the IC via a short piece of garden hose then recirculated the water from the IC back into the cooler and added ice to the water as needed. I even used snow a few times. It worked pretty well. My pond pump was a bit over kill. It was a pond master 700gph. But I didn't buy it I just "repurposed it" from SWMBO's pond. Lots of people do similar things

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[tojo]

I use one myself. I go through a 20 lb. bag for a 5 gal. brew. I use a 5 gal. Home Depot bucket to hold the ice and water. I put half ice in bucket with some water for the initial cool down which goes very quickly. Dump that water add more cold water and ice. It gets the job done much better than ice bath I used to do and much quicker.

 

[Biking_Brewer]

Anyone have suggestions on a specific pump as well as the needed adapters to connect to a garden hose?

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[gunner65]

Anyone have suggestions on a specific pump as well as the needed adapters to connect to a garden hose?

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I picked one up from harbour freight that works great.

264 GPH Submersible Fountain Pump

 

[Exbeerienced]

I don't know how common this is, but I got this copper adapter at either Lowe's or HD. It is for connecting a garden hose fitting and works great.

 

[bstacy1974]

If its cold enough to freeze your driveway and street, I'm assuming you have snow on the ground.
I used a flexible container (orange thing) full of water and snow. Sunk my sump pump in that.

 

[Biking_Brewer]

Here is what I ended up doing. Got a pond pump from my local pet shop and the properly threaded adapter from Ace Hardware. Couldn't have worked out any better. Works like a charm!

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[pecor]

TIP, Guys if you ever need to reduce the flow from the pump use a C clamp on the hose outlet, Even beter would be a ball valve with barb fittings. Jay

 

[gunner65]

TIP, Guys if you ever need to reduce the flow from the pump use a C clamp on the hose outlet, Even beter would be a ball valve with barb fittings. Jay

Agreed I have a ball valve on mine.

 

[wolfstar]

I wouldn't start recirculating right off the bat with ice water...you'd run through a lot of ice..and whatever your ground temps may be are low enough when starting the cooling.

I have a submersible pump (about $40) that I stick into a cooler full of water (at ground temp). The outflow of my IC goes into my HLT so that I am able to use that water for cleaning. I have a normal hose from my ground water supply refilling the cooler as the pump is draining it. After about 5-10 minutes, I move my pump from the regular ground water to a separate cooler with an ice water bath. At this point I just stick the outflow hose of my IC into that same water bath and let it recirculate.

No wasted water, minimal amount of ice since I am starting with my ground water, and having a separate vessel for my pump with ice water allows the water to pre-chill getting it to a lower temp for cooling. Simply adding ice to your water source won't be as effective.

So basically don't start recirculating until you have cooled the wort down a decent amount. While you are doing that it's not hard to collect the water you are using in something else which could be used later. Once you are ready to recirculate move the pump to an ice water bath. You're wort will be cooled in at least 20 minutes.

Your statement is incorrect. Please see the below link.

First Law of Thermodynamics

Another example would be when smoking meat, others here are familiar with the "hump" . The hump is the last part of cooking where it takes longer to get from 160-180 degrees. This is due mostly in part to the fact that the interior temperature of the smoker is much closer to equilibrium with the temperature of the meat at 175 degrees than it would be at say...120 degrees. The greater the difference in temperature, the more rapid the exchange of heat energy from "hot" (high energy) to "cold" (low energy).

Your best bet is to start out with as much ice as possible that will allow the pump to run to cool your wort as quickly as possible.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]
Another example would be when smoking meat, others here are familiar with the "hump" . The hump is the last part of cooking where it takes longer to get from 160-180 degrees. This is due mostly in part to the fact that the interior temperature of the smoker is much closer to equilibrium with the temperature of the meat at 175 degrees than it would be at say...120 degrees. [...]

Wrong. The "stall" in barbecue primarily occurs because of the rendering of fats and breakdown of connective tissue at a key internal temperature range - around 160°F. Once that process is complete the temperature gain slope rapidly increases - which belies your theory...

Cheers!

 

[Airborneguy]

I usually run two buckets of cold tap water through the chiller first (dumping them into the washer machine), then run a third bucket of ice water, re-circulating that until the wort is to pitching temp. I have a lager freezer (I keep it at regular freezing temps when not in use for lagering) in which I make ice blocks by filling cheap "tupperware" from Chinese food orders. I find that the "bricks" last longer than the bags of ice I used to buy. I try not to waste any of the water by having a load of laundry ready to go whenever I brew.

 

[tojo]

Anyone have suggestions on a specific pump as well as the needed adapters to connect to a garden hose?

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk

I started off with one from Harbor Freight for $18 (not sure if same as one previously quoted) but I found it did not move enough water for me. I bought pond pump from Lowe's for $32 (unsure of gpm rating) but it works much better. I use the connectors it came with as I have no hose connections on my chiller.

 

[wolfstar]

Wrong. The "stall" in barbecue primarily occurs because of the rendering of fats and breakdown of connective tissue at a key internal temperature range - around 160°F. Once that process is complete the temperature gain slope rapidly increases - which belies your theory...

Cheers!

"largely in part" not entirely, note my text...

the laws of thermodynamics are not really considered a theory last I checked.


And according to this guy, we are both wrong somewhat...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-goldwyn/physicist-cracks-bbq-mystery_b_987719.html


But I stick to my origional statement that starting with plenty of ice will cool your wort faster. With 2 physicists in the family...I could not get that one wrong or they might flame me...

 

[day_trippr]

I can easily accept his conclusion. And the result of that experiment still belies your claim that the stall occurs because of the narrowing difference between meat temperature and cooker temperature. Looking at his chart

the steep rise of the sponge temperature is about as stark a contradiction as it gets...

Cheers!

 

[sheeshomatic]

Comparing conductive heat transfer to meat in a smoker and heat exchange in an immersion chiller is really an apples to oranges comparison. There's no such thing as evaporative cooling when you're using your immersion chiller unless you count the steam rising off your boil kettle.

Simply put, the colder the chiller water is, the more heat it can absorb from the wort before it reaches equilibrium. The only factor that changes since the chiller remains constant is the time it takes to reach that. The colder the water, the less you'd need to use, so you can either pump it slower to allow for maximum heat transfer, or recirculate it until the entire volume comes to equilibrium with the wort. Laminar flow and fluid dynamics come into play regarding how fast you will lose efficiency, but for sake of discussion, if you run the pump or flow at such a speed that the egress of the chiller is at current wort temp, then you're going slow enough and using the least amount of water. You could increase flow until the chiller egress water begins to be cooler than the wort and back off slightly if you want to use the least amount of water possible.

 

[achanez]

Why the pompous response? We aren't talking laws of thermodynamics here. He sharing his way of being more efficient. Efficiency has nothing to do with temperature gradients unless your argument is time vs money therefor not adding ice early costs too much money, but then why are you home brewing to begin with?
I believe when he says efficiency he is saying that if you add all the ice in the beginning you melt your ice before you get to your desired temp. Use ground water to cool it a little thus reducing the amount of ice you need. Since he is saving the water for cleaning, there is no water loss or ice rink in the driveway.

Please don't quote laws of thermodynamics on HBT unless it's to help, rather than to put down.

 

[Bellybuster]

just remembered why I haven't visited this site very often the last few years.

snow works a treat in recirc systems both at the beginning and the end