This is an issue of faster, and colder chilling needed.
I recently moved and have learned a few things about my new water source which is a well and apparently not all that cold. I use a Keggle for a brew kettle, a March pump for transfer of hot liquor to my cooler MTLT, gravity drain into my kettle from the MTLT and a 50' x 1/2 inch copper IC for chilling. I used to use the pump to recirculate wort during chilling but it didn't buy me that much time savings and cleaning and sanitizing the pump each time didn't seem worth the hassle anymore.
In the fall it typically takes 20 minutes to get below 70 degrees but last brew session it took 30 minutes just to hit 75 and I couldn't move it any colder. It's summer now and the water spigot is farther from my brew stand so lots of garden hose is sitting in the yard, helping heat the well water a few degrees perhaps.
Anyway I'm considering using ice and initially thought about buying a submersible utility pump. I thought I could put that in a bucket of ice water and have a short section of garden hose to hook it to my IC for chilling from about 100 degrees down to pitching temp. Use the well water to go from boiling to 100 first, then switch to this immersion setup. I could recirculate the chill water and just add ice to the bucket to keep it cold as possible.
Then I had a thought. I already have a pump. Why not use my March pump and my MTLT for holding the ice water? I wash it during the boil anyway, so it's rinsed, and ready to use. I could set it on the brew stand so it's above the pump ( required for these pumps ), fill it with ice and water, hook it to my pump and use my pump to recirc the ice water through the IC. It's insulated to boot, which is better than a bucket and it's much bigger than a 6gal bucket. I use an Igloo ice cube 60qt capacity.
Does anybody else do this?
Am I making sense?
I think it will work great, I just want to know if anyone else is doing it and what experiences have been.
TIA for all replies.