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Hi all,
I have been doing a tonne of looking and researching and I can't find a reason why we don't all wort chill in a bucket of running water.

IE: using a wort chiller to pass wort through and the chiller goes on a bucket of running water.

Reasoning: you need to remove 5400 btus to get wort to pitching temperature. Water can absorb 8.33 btus per gallon per degree f. Maximum contact with the maximum amount of water would do this best.
So having the chiller exchange Heat in a bucket of running water should be the best way. Like a giant counterflow chiller.

Does this make sense to anyone. I attached my calculation that appear to show 2.5min cooling times with a 15gallons per minute flow. This can't be right!

What are the sizes of the vessels in your diagram? The use of a counterflow chiller helps to ensure good exposure between hot and cold. I feel like the larger the wort vessel, the poorer the heat exchange between the two, due to separation of hot and cold.

Or are you saying flowing your wort through the immersion chiller, which is put in a bucket of cold water(And the inner vessel in your diagram is the chiller)? That makes more sense, and would probably quite effective.

Your second interpretation is correct. An immersion chiller in a bucket.
This is the way many large coolers are made, so it makes sense for brewing.
If you could pressurize the outer vessel you could increase the cooler further I think.

Has all the downsides of a normal CFC - have to clean the inside of a pipe you can't see, have to have a pump or something to push the wort through the coil. It couldn't be thermodynamically any more efficient than a CFC or plate chiller. Actually, as the whole bucket would warm up, it would no longer be as good at chilling (unless you had an indefinitely large water supply rate - try timing how long it takes to fill a bucket from the tap to get a good sense of it). So what's the advantage?

PS not trying to be a dick just don't see the point

The water is pumped out the top so you have the same flow out as in.
The advantage is the increased heat capacity of the added water. I got reply on a different forum from a guy who does this with a pump and he said he adds ice into the bucket and chills 5gal to pitching in under 10 mins
The cost is very low if it works. Like sub $50 for at min CFC performance

to be honest, the cost would be comparable to a CFC - the cost with a CFC is the copper tubing, which you have to buy for this as well. the cost of a 25 foot hose and a couple fittings isn't dramatically more than a 5gallon bucket.

other thing is, i can chill a 5 gal batch to pitching in under 10 mins with tap water, a tiny immersion chiller, and thorough agitation (stir it well), at least during the winter months when tap water is ~10 C. This is essentially the reverse, an immersion heater (using the hot wort as the heat source) and you would have to thoroughly agitate the cold water in the bucket to keep it chilling properly. I don't see any advantage over the much simpler immersion chiller.

I don't doubt you're honesty, or whether you're a dick or not.
The reason to stir your wort is to increase the amount of wort in contact with the coolant coil.
Most applications where things are cooled the hot item is brought to/through a coolant and the exchange is improved by increasing surface area and/or coolant flow/capacity.
I think it would be fast, and fool proof. With no storing.

If you want fast and fool proof just get a CFC. You recirc hot wort through it first to sanitize.