Recirculating Ice Water Chiller

EdWort · Sep 8, 2007

I've read a number of posts from folks in hot areas like Texaz & Arizona that are recirculating ice water for their chillers. I used to use a prechiller, but not any more. I stopped by Lowes yesterday and picked up a 200 GPH fountain pump, 15 ft. of garden hose, and some hose fittings. I made my own ice water recirculator for about $45.

You can use any cooler, but I had my party keg cooler handy.

I connected it to my mongo 50 ft. copper immersion chiller from B3 after I brought the temp down to 100 degrees with tap water.

I added water and 40# of ice and cranked her up. It was running great.

I had to move the chiller up and down a few times, but it brought my wort down to temp in no time. I ended up pitching my Wyeast 3068 starter at 68 degrees when I was done. I'm very happy with my purchase and when I start the Jamil Wort Recirulating System, I'll be able to chill to lager temps in a fraction of time. Great idea and saves water!

Trencher · Sep 8, 2007

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, and all of the recent posts gave me a lot more confidence. Now I need to find that old submersible aquarium pump...

Bernie Brewer · Sep 8, 2007

Not a bad idea, Ed! I could use that in wintertime if only to keep from turning my driveway into an ice skating rink. I'll definitely have to give this some thought!

EdWort · Sep 8, 2007

Bernie Brewer said:
Not a bad idea, Ed! I could use that in wintertime if only to keep from turning my driveway into an ice skating rink. I'll definitely have to give this some thought!

Thanks, but I learned about it here on HBT. I think it was Bobby_M who came up with it.

It fricking rocks now! It will make AlGore proud!

BierMuncher · Sep 8, 2007

Sweet set up. I am tired of shaking my prechiller up and down to keep fresh-iced water up against the copper.

Oh...and uh...Ed?

I want my banjo burner back. You can keep the cinder block.

EdWort · Sep 8, 2007

BierMuncher said:
Sweet set up. I am tired of shaking my prechiller up and down to keep fresh-iced water up against the copper.

Oh...and uh...Ed?

I want my banjo burner back. You can keep the cinder block.

Yeah, I have a 25 ft. copper chiller for sale.

I guess the burnt paint on the Banjo is a dead giveway. Send the UPS guy. :cross:

olllllo · Sep 9, 2007

I used a submersable pump and a plate chiller:

jdoiv · Sep 10, 2007

I've been doing the same thing for a couple of months now. I also set up the Jamil whirlpool reciculation pump and can pull my temps down to the mid 60's fairly easily. I think it will take a little more ice to get down to lager temps. I went through almost 60 pounds of ice a couple of weeks ago, of course it was 105 here that day and most of the ice melted before I got it into the bucket. I think it will rock in the cooler months coming up.

Bobby_M · Sep 10, 2007

On my last batch I tried something similar but since I hate the idea of paying for ice, I put two 6 gallon buckets of water into my fermentation freezer. I set the controller on 35F and then went on to start my brewday. Now, you could argue that I spent as much in electricity as I would going out and buy ice, but I also didn't have to leave the house. Time is money.

To put it into perspecitive, it would take about a 10lb bag of ice to get 6 gallons of 85F tap water down into the low 30's. It's nice to start with water that cold to begin with. Of course, if you don't use a freezer as your fermentation cabinet then you don't even have this option.

Beerrific · Sep 10, 2007

This is one of the next things on my "To Buy" list, but I am working on setting up kegging so it might be a while.

What does everyone think about adding salt to the ice to get the temp down real low? I have 25' immersion chiller and am hoping to have it set-up like this to cool my first lager.

EdWort · Sep 10, 2007

Salt reduces the freezing temp of water, but I will not run salt water through my copper chiller or pump just for a few extra degrees.

Bobby_M · Sep 10, 2007

It would be OK if you flush it out aftwards but that's just another step in a long brewday ya know? I've gotten icewater down to zero degrees F with some rock salt. That is some serious cooling potential but make sure you have a lot of ice.

Jester4176 · Sep 10, 2007

An Idea I've been tossing around in the back of my mind is freezing a copper immersion chiller in a bucket of water. I have a spare chiller to do this with and I was thinking about freezing it inside a 3gal bucket of water. Then running the tap water for my CFC through the frozen chiller first. I need to check the flow, but if the flow through the frozen chiller, and then through the CFC is high enough, I think it would be effective. This sound doable to the board, or am I wasting my time?

Bobby_M · Sep 10, 2007

I've thought about this too but there's a fatal flaw. The ice will melt around the coil but you still won't be able to agitate that water/ice to keep hot water from staying near the coil. In a regular icewater bath, at least you can stir.

Besides.. prechillers in any capacity are not as good as pumping/flowing the icewater directly.

EdWort · Sep 10, 2007

Bobby_M said:
Besides.. prechillers in any capacity are not as good as pumping/flowing the icewater directly.

Yep and it's cheaper to put together than 25' pre chiller. Better performance, less cost and less waste.

GjG · Sep 10, 2007

I just recently got a 60' prechilling coil and have been considering useing dry ice for it. My only hesitation is it might freeze the water in the coil, any thoughts?

ScubaSteve · Sep 11, 2007

Dry ice is expensive....see Ed's comments Re: Al Gore

ScubaSteve · Sep 11, 2007

Ed-

You're getting me all worked up to do the liquid plumbing on my rig! I'm totally on board with Jamil's whirlpool pump method. I got a couple ideas I'll throw into the mix when I get them all worked out

Bernie Brewer · Sep 11, 2007

Hey Ed, how big is that bucket?????

EdWort · Sep 11, 2007

Bernie Brewer said:
Hey Ed, how big is that bucket?????

It's an Igloo Party Cooler. Pretty big. It will hold 1/2 bbl keg or 3 cornies.

mad hops · Sep 12, 2007

sounds great and will be great for people with small amount of space and tight budgets!!! thanks!!

Germey · Sep 19, 2007

ScubaSteve said:
Dry ice is expensive....see Ed's comments Re: Al Gore

Unless you capture the evaporating (Sublimating, technically) CO2 and use it to preflush some kegs or something.
Ok, I guess that's a real stretch.

weetodd · Oct 2, 2007

Is there anything special you need to connect the pump to the hose?

EdWort · Oct 2, 2007

weetodd said:
Is there anything special you need to connect the pump to the hose?

Nope, the 200 GPH pump comes with a garden hose adapter. It said so on the packaging which is why I chose it.

Lil' Sparky · Oct 2, 2007

I tried this for the first time yesterday on an 11 gal batch. Our ground water here is 85', so the best my CFC will do with a single pass is ~ 90'. Recirculating through the CFC to get the whole batch cool enough where the ice water would then get the wort to 75' took longer than I expected.

I think my submersible is only 160 gal/hr, and I felt that I really needed a bigger pump. I didn't cycle the used water back into my bucket. I was using a 5 gal water cooler, and it was too small. I kept having to monitor the water level and add more ice and hose water (which probably wasn't much different than the exit water now that I think of it). Next time I'll use a big cooler and start with all the ice (I think 40 lbs) to begin with.

Anyway, it was my first try with it. Hopefully next time things will go a little easier.

brewhead · Oct 2, 2007

i've been doing this procedure for a while now and i can attest that it does work. i freeze water in empty water bottles or propel bottles to use in the cooler.

in the dead of august i will use my imc as one would regularly do to coll things down to the 100 degree mark , which is just about the limit in august , then crank in the ice water chiller and bam...temp drop in short period of time.

scocam · Oct 29, 2007

Absolutely brilliant. I just made this chiller. It was one of the most satisfying 30 minute projects I've ever completed. The cost was ~$50 for the copper, pump, tubing and connectors. It dropped my temps to ~75F in less than 15 minutes using about 3 gallons of ice water. Amazing!

Thanks!
Scott

El_Borracho · Dec 11, 2007

This is a great thread, bump!

WBC · Jan 19, 2008

I have found that hot whirlpooling works best for me and the counterflow chiller will cool a 12 gallon batch in 8 minutes. If I want to get colder than 80 for lagers I just place my 1/2 inch x 50 foot imersion coil in an ice water bath and hook it inline before the counterflow inlet water. I then throttle the wort as fast or slow as I need to get 50 degrees into the fermenter.

runhard · Jan 20, 2008

brewhead said:
i've been doing this procedure for a while now and i can attest that it does work. i freeze water in empty water bottles or propel bottles to use in the cooler.

in the dead of august i will use my imc as one would regularly do to coll things down to the 100 degree mark , which is just about the limit in august , then crank in the ice water chiller and bam...temp drop in short period of time.

I like the idea of using water bottles and simply pulling some out of the freezer if I need addtional cooling.

Recirculating Ice Water Chiller

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Grouchy Old Fart

Well-Known Member

...My Junk is Ugly...

Well-Known Member

[]-O-[]

Well-Known Member

Vendor and Brewer

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Vendor and Brewer

Well-Known Member

Vendor and Brewer

Well-Known Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Grouchy Old Fart

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Cowboys EAC

Well-Known Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Similar threads