IC pump question

[dmbhawker]

First off I live in South Texas where it is usually surface of the sun hot

I found a ponp pump in my parents garage, a 130 gph pump and hooked it up and measured my flow rate. First off i have 25 ft of copper and probably 10-15 ft inlet and outlet tubing. My flow rate was 2qt/min or 30 gph.

My plan was to run tap water for the first 80-100 degrees (probably take 10 minutes) and then hook up pump and pump ice water through it. My question is: Is that enough flow rate to drop my temps to ~65-70 within 5-10 minutes? right now if i stir wort for 20 minutes i can get to 85 in 22-25 minutes (which is the temp i am pitching yeast...sad i know).

I don't mind buying a pump for less than 30 bucks but would the 1 I have suffice? I am considering this puppy: http://www.harborfreight.com/264-gph-submersible-fountain-pump-68395.html?utm_campaign=SEO&utm_medium=Inbound_links&utm_source=linking

 

[phoenixs4r]

in my opinion, getting temps below 100° is more about moving the wort vs high flow of a pump. I would say the one u have is fine.

 

[DeafSmith]

in my opinion, getting temps below 100° is more about moving the wort vs high flow of a pump. I would say the one u have is fine.

I think getting a lot of flow through the chiller is important. With low flow, the water heats up as it goes through the chiller and so the tubing in the second half of the chiller is also hot, leading to less heat transfer to that part of the chiller. With a high flow rate, you keep the entire chiller cool and get maximum heat transfer. I have been using tap water to get the temp. down to under 100º F and then using my March pump to recirculate ice water through my 50 foot, 3/8 inch copper I.C. I have not been happy with the flow I get from the March pump because it simply will not develop enough pressure (a problem inherent to the March pump not being a positive displacement type pump). I found this:
http://www.harborfreight.com/heavy-duty-drill-powered-pump-98384.html
at Harbor Freight for $14 and plan to try it out on my next brew. So far I have only run a short test, but this pump really develops a lot of pressure and high flow through my chiller. The only problem is that the pump comes packed full of white grease which makes a real mess, so I would advise disassembling the pump (easy to do) before use and cleaning the grease out of it. I think the water will lube it well enough if you take care not to run it dry. I don't yet know about the reliability of the pump, but if it holds up it should work great.

 

[dmbhawker]

I think getting a lot of flow through the chiller is important. With low flow, the water heats up as it goes through the chiller and so the tubing in the second half of the chiller is also hot, leading to less heat transfer to that part of the chiller. With a high flow rate, you keep the entire chiller cool and get maximum heat transfer. I have been using tap water to get the temp. down to under 100º F and then using my March pump to recirculate ice water through my 50 foot, 3/8 inch copper I.C. I have not been happy with the flow I get from the March pump because it simply will not develop enough pressure (a problem inherent to the March pump not being a positive displacement type pump). I found this:
http://www.harborfreight.com/heavy-duty-drill-powered-pump-98384.html
at Harbor Freight for $14 and plan to try it out on my next brew. So far I have only run a short test, but this pump really develops a lot of pressure and high flow through my chiller. The only problem is that the pump comes packed full of white grease which makes a real mess, so I would advise disassembling the pump (easy to do) before use and cleaning the grease out of it. I think the water will lube it well enough if you take care not to run it dry. I don't yet know about the reliability of the pump, but if it holds up it should work great.

wow, i have never even heard of a drill pump! looks like it would work, i'll check it out thanks!

anybody have experience with drill pumps good/bad or otherwise?

 

[Jbear]

Nice find! I will be curious to hear how this works. I've been wanting to do the same thing but haven't pulled the trigger on buying a pump. This looks like a super cheap option if it works.

 

[day_trippr]

[...] I don't yet know about the reliability of the pump, but if it holds up it should work great.

"Harbor Freight" and "reliability"? Good luck with that

Cheers!

 

[OneHoppyGuy]

"Harbor Freight" and "reliability"? Good luck with that

Cheers!

Hey, their sandpaper is ok... sort of

 

[DeafSmith]

"Harbor Freight" and "reliability"? Good luck with that

Cheers!

Well, at least the pump is made in Taiwan, not China.

 

[yinzer2]

I bought a cheap pond pump I run cool water until it gets down to 100* or so and then put ice in the bucket. Since you have warmer water you might have to add the ice faster and use more.

But the biggest thing that I found out it the you need to move either the wort or the chiller. I whirlpool now but before that I'd gently more the IC around. But you have to be very careful. Both ends of the chiller would be cold and the wort was still hot. I'd pick up both ends and move the IC and instantly the one end would got very hot. I wore special gloves. But this really helped.

 

[dbrewski]

I just tried a new setup today and it worked pretty well. I bought this pump:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000A0OPCY

it's a Beckett 7061310 350gph Submersible Pump, a pond pump like somebody else mentioned. I had to get the right tubing and a garden hose male adapter on the end to hook it up to my chiller. I had a 6 gallon bucket on the floor with ice in it, and I brought my boil kettle in and set it into my slop sink (had cold water in that too). Turned the pump on, this thing really moves water. Stirred gently and the temps came down to 100 in less than 8 minutes (I was on the shy side of a full 5 gallons wort). At that point it stopped going down, because the ice melted and the water in the bucket was pretty warm, so I hooked my chiller to the faucet instead and finished up. I used way less water doing it this way. I guess the pump is not all that cheap at $29 but I was shooting for something that would pump at least 5gallons per minute, this does nearly 6. That's faster than I get out of my faucet for sure. Next time I will use more ice, or do as some of these folks say and use the faucet first to take some heat off.