BeerBorg

Last summer I had a heck of a time chilling my wort. I would run my chiller an hour to get it down to 80F, then pour into two buckets and carry down stairs where it is always 68F and put a fan on it for another hour or so. This year I wised up and invested $20 in a tetra pond pump. I just fill my mash tun with ice water, drop the pump in, hook it up to my chiller, and plug it in. Last Sunday I got my wort from boiling to 58F in 35 minutes.



I do bring my wort down to 80 or 90F before hooking this up. But with this device there is no need for a pre chiller as I am circulating straight ice water. If I really wanted to be hard core I could throw some rock salt in with the ice. But that might be hard on the pump.

Looks nice roger! My well water is COLD, I did up a batch yesterday and in 5 minutes I was from boiling to under 100. Another 5 minutes I was at 65.

I seriously have to get this set up. Could only get down to about 85 yesterday, and that took about 20 minutes. Had to finish off with an ice bath in the sink. Won't do another summer 5G batch until I have a better way to cool.

gwcr wrote:I seriously have to get this set up. Could only get down to about 85 yesterday, and that took about 20 minutes. Had to finish off with an ice bath in the sink. Won't do another summer 5G batch until I have a better way to cool.

The pump was so cheap, and it functions so well, that I don't know why I waited so long to buy one.

I'll post a picture of how Irish/Italians (me) use a pond pump while brewing when I get to that point in 90 minutes or so.

Beer-lord wrote:I'll post a picture of how Irish/Italians (me) use a pond pump while brewing when I get to that point in 90 minutes or so.

Cool I will be looking forward to that.

So I basically do what everyone does but I simply go to the ice house, get 20 lbs of crushed in my ice chest (loose $1.50) and put the pump in the ice chest. I just need to add about 1/2 gallon of hot wort water to melt the ice enough to get started.

Yep, these little pumps are great! I use one with my plate chiller, and it's awesome.

What pump do you guys use? Would this be a good one?

EcoPlus Pump

gwcr wrote:What pump do you guys use? Would this be a good one?

EcoPlus Pump

I use the cheapest tetra pump Mennards has. Any pump will work as long as the hose coming from it will accommodate a garden hose fitting so you can attach it to your chiller. I am guessing the more gallons per hour you can pump through the chiller the more effective it will be. Mine does 140 gallons per hour which is not a lot of pressure. But it works fine.

EDIT: I just read through the description of the one you linked to and it is much better than mine.

Cool. Thanks Gymrat!

russki wrote:Yep, these little pumps are great! I use one with my plate chiller, and it's awesome.

Russki, What temp are you able to get down to with the plate chiller and pump in a single pass? Thanks!

DS Brewery wrote:

russki wrote:Yep, these little pumps are great! I use one with my plate chiller, and it's awesome.

Russki, What temp are you able to get down to with the plate chiller and pump in a single pass? Thanks!

I recirculate wort back to the kettle, and can get 5 gallons down to 65F in under 15 min. If you did a single pass, with slow enough flow, it comes out same temp as the cooling water.

Last summer without a pond pump it took me 45 minutes to get to 70. This summer with one, I can get to 65 in 18 minutes. Love it.

I've been sold on a prechiller and pond pump for a while now too. It's the only way to cool down wort quickly in my area during the summer.



I go the frozen water bottle route, supplemented with ice cubes as needed.