[punatic]

If you get one, go big.  The Harbor Freight one will be real good.  I have a 560 gpm pond pump, which is adequate.  More flow would increase the heat transfer and thus decrease the cooling time.

560 gpm is a MONSTER pump.  It would empty a 10,000 gallon pond in 18 minutes.

[punatic]

I'm in Orlando, at least until I am finished with school. 

Which school?
I am UCF CECS Class of '03

[hopfenundmalz]

My bad - 560 Gallons per hour.

[SpanishCastleAle]

I chill similrly to euge.  I have a 50' IC but also use an old 25' IC as a prechiller.  I put some water and frozen water bottles in with the prechiller and run the tap water through that, then at some point (~20 gallons later, all of which was put into the washing machine for laundry) I remove the prechiller and switch over to the 560 gph pond pump.  It only takes a few seconds to disconnect and pull out the prechiller, connect to the pump, then drop the pump into the bucket of cool water.  Then I just dump ice into the bucket.  One full ice bin from my freezer's icemaker is good for ales, I need two full bins for lagers.  I don't buy any bagged ice, just dump the ice bin in my freezer once during the week and I'm good.

I think the 560 gph pond pump I got from Home Depot is about the minimum I would want for a 50' x 3/8" OD IC .  They are only rated for 1' head so they peter out pretty quickly once you start adding restrictions.

[gmwren]

After reading this thread it got me thinking, scary i know, but i wonder how much more efficient using 2 immersion chillers in-line  ould be? One inside the wort and another in a cooler full of ice water with the pump. A garden hose doesn't seem too efficient at heat transfer. anyone ever try it?

Tony

I've placed my old immersion chiller in a bucket of ice water to pre chill water going into my counter flow chiller. Works OK, but I still waste lots of water. I would like to go the pump route and keep a closed circuit system because the lawn doesn't always need watering.

[weithman5]

unless you have a cooling source better than ice to act as the heat sink. adding a chiller in the ice bucket rather than circulating the water throught the ice directly you will lose a small amount of cooling power.

[4swan]

A couple of years ago I got a Fountain pump for about $30 at Lowe's. I can't find the gph, but I brewed a Helles a couple of days ago and I got the 5 gallons of wort to down to 52F in about an hour.   After pre-chilling with the IC and hose water I moved the kettle inside to the ice bucket and fountain pump.  Last summer I lost a lot of ice to ambient heat outside.  Keeping the ice water in a cooler inside seemed to help.

[stankonia]

I'm in Orlando, at least until I am finished with school.

Which school?
I am UCF CECS Class of '03

I'm at UCF too.  It's gotten a lot bigger since 03.  56,000+ students now    I think it's the second largest school in the country.

You're out in Hawaii now?  Looks like I picked the wrong major haha


I've been thinking about what everyone has said about using hose water first which makes sense.  Since I'm going to use a a closed system with a pump (My IC doesn't have hose fittings) what I think I will do is have 2 coolers for water since I have a couple to use.  

First I'll have my hose feeding water into 1 cooler where the pump is.  Instead of having the out-flow hose  going back into that cooler with hot water I'll just let it run out to the ground while the hose keeps supplying water.  Then I'll have the other cooler full of ice-water.  Once the temp drops far enough I can just take the pump out of the 1st cooler and put it in the ice-water cooler and put the outflow hose in there with it to start recirculating water.

That way I won't have to worry about getting a connection for a hose for my IC, and when its ready to switch to the ice water it will be quick and seamless.

[stankonia]

Also, this is the pump I decided to get:

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_792_792

1,268 gph, and cheap at $40.

A buddy at the local home brewers club recommended it to me.

[euge]

Stankonia that is an elegant solution. Indeed it is such that I will try it with my next batch. Thank you for that idea.

[SpanishCastleAle]

I live just a few miles away from UCF.  I like saving the already-warm effluent and putting it in the washing machine for laundry, then I don't feel like it's really 'wasting' water.

We outta all meet at WOB someday or something (then Pei Wei afterwards, love that place...but Jersey Mike's is good too!).

[euge]

I have the sprinkler hooked up to the effluent from the IC so the lawn gets the water. It always needs water...

[punatic]

I'm in Orlando, at least until I am finished with school.

Two excellent local homebrewing resources there in Orlando:

Local homebrew club:  Central Florida Home Brewers

Local homebrew supply store:  Heart's Homebrew Supply

[SpanishCastleAle]

I'm in CFHB.  Some really good brewers in the club (not me...yet!) and a good resource imo.

[stankonia]

I'm in CFHB.  Some really good brewers in the club (not me...yet!) and a good resource imo.

Cool, I'm in it too (just joined in April) We'll have to look out for each other at the next meeting since we're both out by UCF.  I'll send you a PM around the time it comes up.