Living where the ground water is rarely below 85 deg F I have had trouble getting my boil cooled to pitching temperature. Yesterday I rigged my pump to recirculate the wort in the boil kettle and nearly halved the time it took to reach 70 deg F. I still used ice to get the ground water cooled, but not until around 100 deg F. Previously it would take nearly an hour to reach this temperature.
Just about the best advance in my brew session yet. ;D
There was an article about this in one of the brewing magazines (maybe zymurgy, or maybe byo?) a few years ago. It sounded like a great idea. The setup in the article had returns that were angled to create a whirlpool while recirculating for the old two birds / one stone thing.
yeah - I’ve been doing this method for a couple years now - sold my Therminator once I was comfortable with it.
I can generally hit mid40s by using a sump pump and recircing the ground water through ice once I hit about 90df.
great little trick, eh?
I bought a pump specifically to do that. Great technique!
Yes, it sure is. Good to see you back.
There you go Paul.
I also bought a pump to do specifically this. But upon comparison, periodic stirring will accomplish the same thing. I get 6 gallons down to 120 in 5 minutes and five stirs with my tepid groundwater. Even with groundwater and a pump it slows down quite a bit after that.
Since this was my first with new technique I tracked the progress. Took my first reading at about 195. Then the temp vs time went as follows.
3 min - 165
6 min - 138
9 min - 122 switched from ground water to secondary chiller in ice bath after this
14 min - 100
17:30 - 90 started pumping straight ice water through the chiller using my pond pump
21 min - 80
24 min - 70
Stopped at this point and began whirlpool. Temp drop about 100 in first 15 min and 30 during remaining time, using much colder water. Oh well, that must be the law of thermodynamics.
I live in North Carolina and this trick works very well during our summers. I can get 5 gallons down to pitching temps within 20 - 30 minutes.
How do you recirculate your boil kettle?
I bought a 120 ft garden hose for brewing this year. My plan is to try coiling 50ft of it in a baby pool filled with ice water just ahead of my chiller.
Hope it works for you. I’ve heard from others who have tried that that there’s no enough heat excahnge from the hose.
To recirculate you boil kettle, you pump wort out of it and back over the immersion chiller in your kettle.
That’s been my experience.
I will tell you how I do it. I have 2 immersion chillers (25’ and 50’) that are connected together. My groundwater goes into the 25’ chiller which sits in a bucket of ice. The cool water then passes into my 50’ chiller which is in the wort. The the water flows out and is collected for cleaning equipment. I also have a chugger pump which recirculates the wort.
I am able to get my wort from boiling to 70 degrees in about 20 minutes using this method, as long as I can keep ice on the 25’ pre-chiller.
At around 110 dF, I fill my Igloo round mash tun with ice, put a Harbor Freight sump pump in there, and create a loop to the IM. Generally I stir while cooling, but have hooked up a March pump to recirculate the wort into a whirlpool.
This is what I do as well although I start in with the ice right off the bat. I go through a lot of ice but I don’t need a garden hose. Adding a pump to recirc the wort while I’m chilling is on my to do list.
That requires transfering heat twice. It would be better to buy a submersible pump and pump the ice water directly through the chiller.
Last summer I was struggling to get my wort under 80* (25’ immersion chiller, pump or hand stirring, no ice). I didn’t really notice a difference in the finished beer between pitching at 80* and having the temp fall to 60* or so overnight in my freezer, and pitching at 60*. On one batch the lag time to kraeusen was longer than usual, but on other batches the lag was shorter than usual.
I haven’t really noticed the kettle-recirc pump whirlpool to be much more effective than hand stirring either. Most 5 gallon batches I don’t even bother with my pump anymore.
My primary objective in wanting to get a pump to recirculate for chilling is so I can just put the lid on the kettle and let it go. That way it’s less exposed to things getting in it (like bugs) and I can work on cleanup while it’s chilling.
I find that recirculating the wort moves a lot more across an immersion chiller for heat exchange. Plus you can do it hands free as stated above without introducing anything foreign to the wort. In my experience it is super effective plus it gives me a chance to do any last minute sanitation that I might have neglected 
Can someone post a picture? I’m just not getting the idea of using both an immersion chiller and pumping the wort somewhere. Maybe it’s because my set up consists of a pot and I have no experience/idea about pumps and where the wort is being pumped from/to.
Thanks