Using a Jaded Hydra with a 7GPM pump instead of garden hose

[GuitarZan]

Hey,

So I guess for the hydra they recommend a 6GPM flow rate thus people use their garden hose rather than a kitchen faucet. I don't have access to a garden hose in the winter and am wondering if I could just have source water, IE a big container full of water and use say a Riptide pump to run water form the container through the immersion chiller? I would keep the length of hose down as well to help things.

Another question is regarding recycling water. I was thinking I could just reuse my chill water. There are a few ideas I was thinking of:

a) Put a 10 gallon bucket full of water in a fridge and lower it as cold as possible. Use this water with the hydra.

b) Fill a 10 gallon bucket with water and then use frozen water bottles to chill this water to use with the Hydra

c) Eventually maybe chill the water with a homemade glycol chiller (can't do this for awhile though)

I have also heard on here about guy using a freezer to keep the water cold till he needed it.

Does anyone have any experience doing this or using a pump to flow the water through the hydra?

 

[str1p3s]

Do you shut your hose off for the winter? Is that why you don't have access? I do that and just turn it back on (valve in the basement) right before chill time and turn it off right after. Also, in the summer, I do keep a bucket in my chest freezer full of water to help chill. I use my normal tap water to chill it down as far as I can and then switch it over to circulating with an old sump pump in the pre-chilled bucket with ice to get it the rest of the way down.

 

[mongoose33]

There's no reason this wouldn't work, with this proviso:

As the temp of the water in the bucket and the wort approach similar temps, you're done cooling--the water in the bucket will warm and that will be that.

It implies using separate sources of water for the initial chill as well as the final chill down to pitch temperature. If, for instance, you had 10 gallons of water at 40 degrees and were trying to chill 5 gallons of boiling wort, the two temps would equalize (assuming my math is OK) at about 94 degrees. And it would be excruciatingly slow as it reached that level.

That's assuming recirculation in the bucket. You could draw from a cold bucket and exhaust it into another bucket, and switch to new (cold water) buckets as each emptied.

 

[khannon]

I would suggest trying it before making beer.. Last thing you want is for a hose to burst or pop off and ruin your beer(OK, maybe not the last thing you want, but it would still suck.). You could alternately slow the outflow of the pump via a ball valve or something..

 

[GuitarZan]

There's no reason this wouldn't work, with this proviso:

As the temp of the water in the bucket and the wort approach similar temps, you're done cooling--the water in the bucket will warm and that will be that.

It implies using separate sources of water for the initial chill as well as the final chill down to pitch temperature. If, for instance, you had 10 gallons of water at 40 degrees and were trying to chill 5 gallons of boiling wort, the two temps would equalize (assuming my math is OK) at about 94 degrees. And it would be excruciatingly slow as it reached that level.

That's assuming recirculation in the bucket. You could draw from a cold bucket and exhaust it into another bucket, and switch to new (cold water) buckets as each emptied.

Yeah I was thinking about switching buckets instead of recirculating back into the original cold bucket. I heard people say that they cooled their wort using the hydra and like 15-18 gallons of water. I was hoping to use maybe 10 gallons of water to cool the wort if it was that much colder say 40 degrees instead of 60-70. My math isn't the best though lol. Also if the flow rate is 7GPM and the hydra wants 6GPM, say I dialled in my Riptide flow to match the 6GPM, does this actually mean it would suck 6 gallons of water out of say my 10 gallon bucket in 1 minute or is this just a number? Can the hydra actually push 6 gallons through it in 1 minute??

Thanks!

 

[TechFanMD]

That flow is just the ideal flow rate for a particular incoming water temp. You can chill with warmer or colder water, or faster or slower flow rates....you'll just chill your hot wort in different time. I wouldn't go crazy with this, and you might just be chasing diminishing returns for all of the effort.

 

[GuitarZan]

That flow is just the ideal flow rate for a particular incoming water temp. You can chill with warmer or colder water, or faster or slower flow rates....you'll just chill your hot wort in different time. I wouldn't go crazy with this, and you might just be chasing diminishing returns for all of the effort.

Yeah I hear ya. Its half about conserving water and half about cooling things down fast.

 

[schematix]

Thermodynamics is going to be your enemy here. In order to transfer heat you need a temperature differential. By recirculating the chill water back to the source, you are constantly lowering your temperature differential. Not only is your wort cooler, but your tank water is hotter! So it's going to get very slow towards the end.

The other thing to keep in mind here is that water doesn't have that great of a specific heat. As was already pointed out, your temps would settle at at average between your source and boiling point if you had equal thermal mass.

Your real money maker here is ice. The energy stored in the phase change from ice to water is *enormous*. You can also get ice as cold as your freezer will allow (frequently -10 to 10F) and there is heat capacity to be stored there as well.

Your best bet is a multi-step solution. Get a big bucket of water, colder is better but whatever you can manage. Use all of that water to do chill your wort but redirect the heated chill water down the drain (or driveway, whatever). Once that water is gone, (i'd aim for however much water it takes to get down to 100F). i'd switch to another bucket of cool water, with a crap ton of ice in it. Recirculate that until you get to your desired temp (or you melt all the ice and your water is now equalized with your wort).

I don't miss brewing outdoors!

 

[LittleRiver]

...Does anyone have any experience doing this or using a pump to flow the water through the hydra?

I use a 50' dual coil copper chiller I built, not a hydra, but the principles are the same.

What I do is first recirculate from a 5gal bucket of water. If it's winter I leave the bucket outside overnight to chill it. During summer I sometimes chill it overnight in a refrigerator, but not always.

When the wort/water temp equalize I move the hoses over to start recirculating from a cooler filled with a 20lb bag of ice and 5gal of water (sometimes pre-chilled as above). I get the ice for $2 at a local discount grocery store. Small cubed or crushed ice will work better than larger containers of frozen water. Heat transfer is dependent on surface area, so the small pieces of ice work much better.

The initial 5gal bucket of water gets hot enough to use for wash water for cleanup, so it gets a lid put on it and saved for that purpose. The water in the cooler gets warm enough to be used as rinse water during cleanup. All in all it's a very efficient way to go.

There's no need for an expensive brewing pump, since you're only moving clean water. An inexpensive water transfer pump will work just fine.

 

[FunkedOut]

I use the hose to down to 100*F as quickly as possible.
My ground water can be in the 80’s - 90’s, so that’s a -s far as that trick goes. I can generate 10 gallons of hot water in 2 minutes.

Then I go with a modified option B. I keep frozen bottles at a few degrees below 0*F in the chest freezer.
The night before brew day, I fill a large cooler with those bottles and fill with tap water.
I flow 5 gallons of that out to a bucket, then recirculate the rest of the way.

Once you switch to a limited “cold supply,” the slower the cold water flows, the more efficient the system will be at transferring heat from the wort to the chilled water. This pump is about 2 gpm.

 

[Loud Brewing]

I use the hose to down to 100*F as quickly as possible.
My ground water can be in the 80’s - 90’s, so that’s a -s far as that trick goes. I can generate 10 gallons of hot water in 2 minutes.

Then I go with a modified option B. I keep frozen bottles at a few degrees below 0*F in the chest freezer.
The night before brew day, I fill a large cooler with those bottles and fill with tap water.
I flow 5 gallons of that out to a bucket, then recirculate the rest of the way.

Once you switch to a limited “cold supply,” the slower the cold water flows, the more efficient the system will be at transferring heat from the wort to the chilled water. This pump is about 2 gpm.

This is the ticket, and exactly what I do with my jaded chiller

 

[GuitarZan]

I guess the average bathtub holds around 70-80 gallons of water (Max capacity). I always shower and quite quickly. All of these immersion chillers use under 20 gallons. Not saying you shouldn't be conscious of water usage, but it kinda puts things into perspective...

 

[TechFanMD]

I guess the average bathtub holds around 70-80 gallons of water (Max capacity). I always shower and quite quickly. All of these immersion chillers use under 20 gallons. Not saying you shouldn't be conscious of water usage, but it kinda puts things into perspective...

Where do you get this number (under 20 gallons)? -I'm guessing 6GMP at ~45-50F input water is rare and are the numbers used for tests to publish marketing materials. You are insisting on 6GPM. Jaded states "5 gallons from boil to 68 degrees in 3 minutes" which is 6GMPx3M=18 gallons...so best case scenario is 18 gallons.....but this is only going to happen with water that much colder than 68F....probably much colder.

 

[GuitarZan]

On their site they said they used 58 degree water to achieve that.