cheap entry into electric brewing

[paul m]

Hi All,

I've found Reubens Blog v. useful ,and keen to go the electric route rather than gas bottle and ring burner. I'm still on the gas hob and 'er indoors don't want a brewery in the kitchen!

I've bought a 51L ss pot and will do 25L to 38L batches (two corny kegs). Any ideas on whats the budget way to get started down the electric route?

I'm thinking a 3kw element and then plug it into the wall.  My query is  what's the cheap way to control the heat output of the element? Is there some sort of variable resistor with a dial wired between the element and the wall? or is the way to go some sort of tempcontroller with sensor like with the fridge fermenter brewmate type thing?

All advise is appriciated

[Barry]

3kw is pushing the limits of your wall socket, but probably doable.

For the kettle you probably don't need temperature control, just full on. For HLT it's good to have a thermostat - I have one of these: http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=888

You only have one pot though? You kind of need 2 unless you're doing brew in a bag - one to heat the liquor (water) and one to boil the wort.

[JoKing]

Definately 3kW is pushing the wall socket. 3kW = just over 13Amps... wall socket = 10Amps. Kiss your circuit breaker goodbye!

[mattd2]

To me that is the more worrying thing is most circuit breakers I have seen are 20 amps but the wall sockets are 10 amps... so the circuit breaker would not trip as it is under its rated load but the wall socket could melt or catch fire.

[paul m]

Thanks Barry,

as with most folk its one step at a time for me. I'm just getting back into brewing after 4 year break. I just did kits before and after reading the great info in this forum decided to make shit hot beer that friend like rather than pauls yeasty homebrew. Its still early days for me. I'm about to start on BIAB. when i do the mash tun i'm thinking of using the family chilly bin- so no element there right? For the HLT i'm thinking of getting an urn from Trade me. 

[Andre Jaworski]

I Use a 3kw element for a 50 L boil and I get a reasonable boil, could be slightly better though, but as the boys are saying above it is probably pushing it a little but I haven't burnt the house down, melted any sockets or blown any fuses yet. 

I think I will upgrade the wall socket soon though.

[David Upex]

You'll need some sort of triac based system, this is the same as a light dimmer for your lounge but it will have to be a high rated one to handle ~13 amps.

[Nick T]

I got a simmerstat from Mastertrade, which is what they hook up to cooktops - you  will need to build it into a box of some sort, but not too difficult to do, or get a sparky to do it for you. Mine is attached to a 4kW element in the kettle, not yet tested. (Electrician coming next week to upgrade the garage to 35amps so I can run the 2.4kW HLT and bits and bobs at the same time.)

[Richard Jack]

does the simmerstat cycle like a stove? or cycle really really fast like a triac or ssr?

[Vesku]

It's slow, there's a sort of thermostat inside it that brakes the circuit as it gets hot when the current goes trough. I think it's the easiest/cheapest (you don't need a sensor) way to go and good enough to control the boil. There's a lot of cheap PID's in Ebay, if you want to go more precise...

I've bought a couple of controllers from this Ebay seller

 

[paul m]

Hi Nick,

how did you go with the 4 kw element? good rolling boil? what size batches do you do? how long to get to the boil? I'm trying to decide on 2 x 2.4kw elements or 1 x 4kw in my boil kettle

 

cheers

 

Paul

[Steve Baker]

I run an extension cord to the kitchen stove to drive my 3kw element. They're usually rated at 20A.

[paul m]

Thanks for all the input. I've got my sparky coming in the next week to check circuits and wiring. To keep below the 10amps i'm thinking of installing in 2 x 2.4kwatt elements and then control using 2 ssr. Any advise on that?