Recirculating Immersion Chiller with Pond Pump

Homebrew Project #1 for the New Year is to put together a recirculating immersion chiller.  The focus this year is easing the physical process. Three years into brewing I’m still using an ice water bath, and even with 3-gallon batches am tired of the hassle of getting the kettle in and out of the bath, but don’t want to waste water. Couldn’t find anything on the AHA wiki, but found some stuff on the web. Does this sound about right?

Immersion chiller with 3/8" brass garden fittings
One short garden hose (such as a leader hose for a hose reel) or length of hose plus clamps
Pond pump, at least 250 gm (higher?) (Something like this: Amazon.com )
Garden hose adapter for pond pump
Receptacle for recirculating water/ice water (I have something similar to this: Amazon.com )
Water source with garden-hose adapter
Garden hose from water source to IC
Consumables for chilling: water, 1 - 2 bags of ice

Higher the better for the Pond Pump.  I think you have a type, should be 250 gph.  I have one that is 550 gph, and I find that I want more flow, as the cooling rate would be higher.  This  is with a 50 ft 1/2 inch copper chiller.

Use tap water to get down to <100F, then hook up the pond pump (might be yoiur plan).  This time of year I do not need the ice bath/pond pump for ales.  Do need it for lagers.  Did a 10 gallon batch of Pils yesterday, and it required 2x7 lb bags of ice to get from 66 to 46 F.

Thanks–very helpful. As I’m mentally reviewing this I’m adding quick disconnects. And beefing up that pump!

any submersible pump will be fine but as mentioned, higher rates are faster cooling.  i like using reusable ice packs. i get oodles of them from work free. so i just get them stocked up and go. i don’t use any cooling water from tap first since i can use these and pull them and replace them with some ready to go.  using tap water first will help you save on ice.

I have something like a 3000 gph submersible pump and only do the recirc when the tap-water has gotten the wort as low as it will go. In winter that is in the mid-sixties and I generally don’t need the recirc. In summer ambient water temp is around 88F so I hook up the pump at about 90F.

If you whirlpool at the same time you can see some prodigiously fast cooling rates. I can get 6 gallons from boiling to 120F in about 5 minutes. Another 10 to get to 90. Then another 15 to get to 65 with the recirc.

I also have some 2 liter frozen bottles that I have been experimenting with. I sanitize and place them inside the helix of the IC and direct the outflow of the march-pump over them while turning the water flow off. This takes the place of the ice-water recirc and while it takes a few minutes longer I don’t have to mess with hooking the pump up or switching over to it.

Works well.

Does that mean manually whirlpooling, as in with a large spoon?

yes or any other means. the bottom line is to disrupt the thermal gradient right at the edge of the coil. sort of like blowing wind across a radiator.  it effectively creates a cross flow heat exchagnnger. so a large spoon works well.  i think i am going to get a motor from a rc boat and use the propeller. just thinking that would be cool.

I don’t think its convenient to recirculate from the beginning, it takes too much ice to neutralize all that heat.  QDs would help you make the switch.

It’s convenient but not all that efficient.  It does take a lot of ice but the temp drops very quickly.

one can either use more ice and recirculate right away (again i use ice packs) or waste more tapwater before hand.  what ever works for ya

I think the choice for now is using more store-bought ice, especially since we too have extra ice packs plus an icemaker that can usually stand to be refreshed. No matter how I do it, QDs make life easier. Appreciating all this advice! I will report back on how much ice it takes (outside temps staying between 40-50f) and how long it takes to cool down the wort (with and without the large-spoon-whirlpool-variable).

This explains why homebrew is my zen… it’s very relaxing to concentrate on something like “water or ice.”

Yes, efficient was the word I meant to use.

I have always felt that the energy for making ice might outweigh the cost of the water.  Of course that depends on electric and water rates, and there are some places where water is at more of a premum.  Around here water is plentiful and using it might not make things worse for water quality overall.

I agree–the tradeoff between additional water runoff and a second bag of commercially-produced ice may be moot, cost-wise as well as environmentally. We’re having a very dry winter, and I am brewing, or at least cooling, in view of a lot of homes (on a third-story deck on a hill in a big city), so I may pick the method with the best public appearance.

P.s. Euge, I thought the 3,000 gph pump was a typo I checked out a couple on Amazon:

Hmmm…

Does it hurt a pump like that one (30gpm) if you use it to pump through a 3/8" immersion chiller?  That is, is that much flow restriction gonna hurt things or will the pump just pump whatever it can push through?

I use a similar 1/6 hp pump through a 3/8 inch chiller and it doesn’t seem like it causes the pump any problems.  Been using the pump like that for about two years and it’s still running like a champ.

when you look at pump discharge head( ;D) it is not just the diameter but height and length that will come in to play. usually parameters will be given that will be acceptable.  look at sump pumps, they will say something about y gph at x feet of elevation. as long as the discharge piping is close in size to that which is at the pump outlet it won’t make much difference especially at the lengths we are talking and minimal elevation change.  my submersible pump is hose sized so the reduction to copper tubing not really concerning

Both of those should work and I haven’t had any problems with the IC’s pipe inner diameter being restrictive.

So yesterday as a test I cooled a little over 3 gallons of wort with an immersion chiller (but no pump). I was dismayed at the amount of water used. However, I didn’t whirlpool until toward the end (I was multitasking… as in, pretending to myself I could do two things at once), and was surprised to see how fast the temp dropped when I did that.

I bought a pump and after I get the last remaining bits to get that going, am going to try with two bags of ice for my next batch. Not exactly sure when that will be–might be this weekend, might have to wait. (My good thermometer died, so I was brewing with a backup thermometer… I want to replace that before I brew again.)

I think the ROT is one pound of ice for every gallon of wort to chill it down after it gets to 90 or so.

Yeah it’s a lot of water to run an IC. I hook the water sprinkler up to the mine and water the lawn at the same time. How’s that for multitasking?