Cooling wort using water from a water butt?

[drmick]

hi All

I have a couple of water butts (currently empty) that I plan on running the cooling water from my immersion chiller into them when I next brew, which will hopefully be this bank holiday, and then use the water once it has cooled down on the garden. It is possible to attach a pump onto the bottom of one of the water butts in the future and pump the contents through the immersion chiller to cool the wort and into the second water butt, thus saving water. I know it won't be as efficient at cooling as using tap water as it won't be as cold but I think it will get some of the temperature down.

If so any suggestions on a cheap pump that will do the job?

Thanks
Michael

[hotmog]

That is precisely the method I have been using for the past couple of years. I have two 136 litre water butts which are connected together by 2" pipe, so the levels in both remain constant. Water is pumped out of one, and returned to the other, via hosepipes. Originally I used a drill pump attachment to pump the water, but that was quite noisy and the drill got quite hot after a while. Then I saw a reconditioned Micromatic beer pump on eBay, which I got for around £15 if I remember rightly. That serves the purpose very well; it's a lot quieter, but unlike the drill pump it cannot suck the water through an empty hosepipe, and needs to be primed with water first. I have a length of hosepipe connected to the outside tap, with the other end connected to the pump inlet hose via a "T" joint. With the tap on the "flow" water butt closed, and the one on the "return" butt open, I turn on the mains water tap so it flows through the system and out into the return. Once all the air has been purged from the pipes, I open the tap on the "flow" butt, switch on the pump and then turn off the mains water tap; the pump then takes over and water is continuously recycled through the wort chiller.

Cooling time varies from around 20 minutes in winter to between 45 and 60 minutes in summer. In very hot weather, the temperature of the water in the butts can get a little warm, so I sometimes have to resort to closing the tap on the "flow" butt, turning off the pump, and opening the outside tap again to allow cold water to flow through the system.

[boingy]

A cheap submersible pond pump is another option. You'd have to put it inside the water butt.
As Hotmog says, you will run out of cooling power in the summer because the water butts will be warmer. You also need a significantly higher water butt capacity compared to your brew length. Of course, during summer you water butts may not be full so it might be a good opportunity to fill them from the cold tap via your beer cooler, thus not wasting the water.

I use the fish pond water. It works well but I am a bit paranoid about leaks!

[beer taster]

I use a dirty water pump to pump water from my water butt. In winter I usually use around 100L to cool my 23L brew length. This weekend I had to use the 100L from the water butt + another 50L from the mains, then connect up the beer cooler to cool the wort.

[floydmeddler]

I have two 200L water buts right next to each other and wouldn't mind giving this a go. Especially since I'm on a water meter these days. I'm thinking about using this 1500L per hour pond pump:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300L-H-3500L- ... 25875e76a1

Can anyone comment on whether or not this would be powerful enough to pump through 10m of hose, through a wort chiller and then through another 10m of hose?

Cheers!

[Martin G]

Since most water butts are black then shading from the sun may help improve efficiency in warmer months. If you wanted to increase cooling power then I was wondering if using ice a bit like the Aussie method of recirculating. Perhaps coil some of the pipe from the water tank in a small bowl of ice water maybe using frozen PET bottles?

[floydmeddler]

Hi Martin,

Yep, have been thinking about that idea too. will prob dump a load of ice into the water butt before chilling.

[Cazamodo]

Ah, definitely stealing this idea!

Been worrying about cooling as I'm moving into a house, and the darn water company jumped in and installed a meter...
I was planning on getting a couple of 200L buts to just save the water from cooling anyway.

[sbond10]

You could put a few 2 litre pet bottles in there with salt water in um