Thought some of y'all might get a kick out of this one. Because our water lines are routed through the roof and it's summer in New Mexico, our tap water is lukewarm at its coldest and sometimes downright hot! ...not very conducive to most wort chiller designs, and I was quickly tiring of the 6 to 9 hour unaided wort cooling gamble.
So I bought a counterflow chiller and hooked it up to an extra carbonation pump I had, attached a 1/4 hp electric motor, dumped 20 lbs of ice into the sink along with some of that lukewarm tap water, and cooled 6 gallons of wort as fast as it would flow out of the brew pot.
At first the cooled wort was actually ice cold, but by the time the operation ended, the entire 20 lbs of ice in the sink had melted, and the water "reservoir" was a bit warm.
End result: 75 degrees in about 12 minutes. I'll be doing this again!
So I bought a counterflow chiller and hooked it up to an extra carbonation pump I had, attached a 1/4 hp electric motor, dumped 20 lbs of ice into the sink along with some of that lukewarm tap water, and cooled 6 gallons of wort as fast as it would flow out of the brew pot.
At first the cooled wort was actually ice cold, but by the time the operation ended, the entire 20 lbs of ice in the sink had melted, and the water "reservoir" was a bit warm.
End result: 75 degrees in about 12 minutes. I'll be doing this again!