immersion chiller pump?

[chetlemmons]

i just built an immersion chiller and i brewed a batch of oatmeal porter last sunday with my girlfriend. she loved helping out until i used the chiller. i tried saving as much water as i could, but i quickly ran out of storage room. i was able to atleast store about 20 gal before i ran out of room, but i probably could have stored another 20 gal...if not more.

which leads me to my questions....im looking into using a pump to re-circulate the water and to cut down on the waste of the water....i know there are tons of instructions on the net, but i was unable to find anything i found useful....i'm looking for a pump that would not break the bank and is pretty easy to use and install, as i'm not a genius when it comes to things like that! also, any instructions or directions on how to install the pump would be useful as well, cause as i said earlier, i'm pretty retarded with this stuff!

hope this made sense! thanks guys!

[Ó Flannagáin]

I've been thinking the same thing. I'd really like to find a way to save that water from chilling. Hopefully someone with way more knowledge than I can jump on here and help you out. What do you think you'd do to recirculate it and keep it cold? Would you run it through an ice bath? If so, you might look into doing what DrunkenSatyr does. I've definitely thought about it.

He fills up a cooler with ice water, sticks a copper coil in it and runs the beer through the coil. It cools the beer instantly as it flows through and he catches it in his fermenter. He pumps it through from a 5 gallon cornie keg hooked up to CO2.

[chetlemmons]

that sounds like a great idea, but i haven't gone into kegging yet, so that would mean a lot of new equipment to buy! i want to get into it, but just can't right now, due to budgetory concerns...

my thoughts were, and i think i've seen something like this somewhere, just can't find it now, was to use a fish tank pump, or something of the like, and use a bucket of ice water and pump the water through the coils, i just don't know how that works?

if at all possible, i'd like to not convert to a counter flow system or running the beer through the coils at all, mainly due to having to sanitize more equipment and the possibility of more equipment upgrades...

[Ó Flannagáin]

Yea, that's what I've always worried about the counter-flow is the sanitation. I really like DS's setup though and think I might go with that if I ever get extra kegs. Right now I try to keep them all full!

[chetlemmons]

yeah, it sounds like a great setup, both time saving and water saving!

[mdd134]

do you not want to waste water because of cost or inconvenience?

I know some places like in town that it would not be good to drain that much water in a small yard.

[Lerxst]

There was an article about this in a recent issue of BYO...when I get home, I will look it up and post some of the relevant info.

[sanders5x]

Here is a good pump for the task, I bought mine when it went on sale for 9.99:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=41287

you can adjust the flow rate but I just set it to wide open

[chetlemmons]

so you would set up your faucet end of the chiller to that pump, then the business end would just flow into the bucket the pump is in? is that how it works? sorry if that's a dumb question...

[Ó Flannagáin]

I'm wondering the same thing. What kind of hook up does the pump have?

[Lerxst]

IIRC, the byo article detailed using your MLT cooler (or some other cooler) to capture some of your chiller water outflow, tossing ice packs in to drop the temp further then using the pump to recirc that...and more ice packs if necessary.

[sanders5x]

The pump just creates a closed loop for the chiller water to recirculate. you can use your mash cooler if you want, just fill it with water and dump a bunch of ice in it, cubes work best because they have more surface area. The first runnings are going to be really hot, so I usually discard the first 4-5 gallons. The pump is submersible and has a garden hose connector on it. I just hook it to my chiller. The outlet of the chiller goes back into the cooler after the first 3-4-5 gallons are discarded because it takes alot more ice if your let them run back into the cooler

[Ó Flannagáin]

AWesome! I'm buying one now. Thanks for bringing this up Chet.

[sanders5x]

I'll try and dig up a picture of what I modeled mine after, but my main system is down right now.

[sanders5x]

Here is what I modeled mine after, I have the plate chiller but have not used it yet, my immersion chiller has worked just fine

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/gallery/data/1/3712-CIMG0758.JPG

[Lerxst]

December 2007 issue

The article details that you need a pump with an operating pressure greater than your system head pressure which is found by:

A + (B/10) + (C/2) + (D/4)

A=Vertical height in feet between reservoir water level and chiller connector
B=Total distance in feet of system
C=Number of 90 degree bends in system
D=Number of adapters and misc fittings in system

Further details include accounting for any drop in pressure due to a difference between the pump output diameter and your tubing (which you can estimate as a percentage difference and apply that)

According to the article if you wanted to chill a 5 gallon batch with 100% recirc, you will need ~ 44 lbs/5 gallons of ice

[chetlemmons]

yeah, i'm gonna take an extended lunch today and search for one myself! thanks for the advice fellas! i'm sure after i buy one i'll have a whole new list of questions, but hopefully not! thanks again!

[DrunkenSatyr]

Now that I am getting the keggle going I need to look into a march pump for the CFC rather than filling 2 5 gallon cornies.

[cheesefood]

You could boil for an extra hour (if you're all grain) then use a bag of ice to get to final volume. That's what I did when I extract brewed - just dumped in two bags of ice and put hot wort on top of it.

EDIT: The nice thing about Chicago days like today is that if I were to brew, I have a nice -20 windchill outside to cool down my beer without using cooling water.

[chetlemmons]

that's a good idea with the bag of ice, i never thought of that...

...so i went to harbor freight on my lunch today and got a great deal on a pump, but being the idiot that i am i didn't realize i got the one that only pumped 66gal/hr. i tested it out when i got home and it didn't really have an ideal waterflow. i also couldn't get the right angle for optimum flow either, so i'm hoping with a more powerful pump the angle is less important? i couldn't put both ends of the hose in the bucket and still get a decent flow. i had to put the output end in a bucket on the floor, with the other bucket, and pot on the kitchen counter....i guess it would still work out, but i'm gonna try to exchange it and get a better one!

[cheesefood]

that's a good idea with the bag of ice, i never thought of that...

...so i went to harbor freight on my lunch today and got a great deal on a pump, but being the idiot that i am i didn't realize i got the one that only pumped 66gal/hr. i tested it out when i got home and it didn't really have an ideal waterflow. i also couldn't get the right angle for optimum flow either, so i'm hoping with a more powerful pump the angle is less important? i couldn't put both ends of the hose in the bucket and still get a decent flow. i had to put the output end in a bucket on the floor, with the other bucket, and pot on the kitchen counter....i guess it would still work out, but i'm gonna try to exchange it and get a better one!

You don't want it to go too fast. 66 gal/hr is fast! Is your pump self-priming? If not you need to gravity feed it the liquid and it'll shoot it back up. March pumps are non-priming so you need to place them below the kettle.

I'd like to create a kettle with a built in peltier device to cool it without water.

[chetlemmons]

i'm not sure if it's selp-priming or not. it was basically the same model sanders posted, just not as good i think...

...if you create that kettle definitely let us know!

[Ó Flannagáin]

Woot, just won one on ebay. The one you linked to sanders. Was 18.50 shipped.

[chetlemmons]

hey o flan, did you try your pump out yet?

[Ó Flannagáin]

Hadn't got it in the mail yet.