Beer Forum

Any pereferences on an efficient low to mid budget setup that would speed up my wort temperature drop and conserve water? I was thinking about pumping ice water through my copper chiller and back through the ice. I've seen just about every gadget there is so I'm looking for tips based on experience. What works for you guys?

no chill

I do my first chill with ground water, to get down to below 120-140. After that, switch to a pond pump set in a bucket of icewater/salted ice water/ice in a cooler. Get a pond pump from Harbor Freight, less than $20. 1 piece of hose and one garden hose fitting come off of the pond pump. Hook to one side of the chiller. The return line from the chiller just goes back into the bucket. You can knock it down mega fast.

If you use the ice chiller straight off of the boil, you'll kill the ice QUICK. You'll spend more money replacing the ice than on water.

Brewstrong!

Yeah, jonboris. I was planning on a similar method. Good call on using tapwater for the initial temp drop. Good advice.

jonboris wrote:I do my first chill with ground water, to get down to below 120-140. After that, switch to a pond pump set in a bucket of icewater/salted ice water/ice in a cooler. Get a pond pump from Harbor Freight, less than $20. 1 piece of hose and one garden hose fitting come off of the pond pump. Hook to one side of the chiller. The return line from the chiller just goes back into the bucket. You can knock it down mega fast.

If you use the ice chiller straight off of the boil, you'll kill the ice QUICK. You'll spend more money replacing the ice than on water.

Brewstrong!

Came in here to say just this!

I brew in my kitchen so a smaller pond pump doesn't have a problem pumping the water two feet up (also harbor freight). On one end of my wort chiller I have a faucet connection to hook it up to the kitchen faucet, let it chill to about 110*F, then let the sink fill up with water + ice, disconnect the faucet and drop it in the sink and connect the other side of the wort chiller to the pond pump. Then I can recirculate the water without having to worry about wasting it, and I can still use my sink faucet for cleaning up.