Electric Brewery's

[Scott H]

We spoke about creating a discussion so people who have or people who are thinking about and/or building can share pic's info and pitfalls to avoid.

Just about finished building my bench and hopefully will have a chance to start wiring it up this weekend. Pics to follow shortly.

[Patrick]

How does this element look? Would it be OK on a 10 amp socket? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0060HN8KQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?i...

Thinking about running two of them - one on a PID to control mash temp and the other just on a switch to assist in ramping and speed up getting to the boil.

[Barry]

If you use the Ohms Law Calculator 2500W at 240V will draw a shade over 10A. You'll want it on a 15A circuit to give yourself some headspace.

[Barry]

Oh and two is a good idea for more juice to get up to temp. What volumes are you anticipating?

[Patrick]

Mostly 23L batches, but I am using a 63L kettle so there is potential for bigger batches in the future. I am doing a full volume single vessel method, and I want to speed up the process as much as possible without impacting on quality too much. Limited space and time so I am going single vessel and kegs only.

I will have to find a slightly smaller element, I don't have 2 15A sockets in the house and as it is only a rental I don't want to add any.

[Barry]

yeah with smaller you'll add time to the brewday, and you want to be careful not to go so low that you can't maintain a vigorous rolling boil.

[Patrick]

I'm sure I saw some that were 2400w at 240v on ebay or amazon but can't find them now. I will keep looking, getting impatient to get started, spending a small fortune on craft beer lately! It adds up fast at $6 - $10 a bottle.

[DMAC]

I'm doing similar with 2 x 2500 watt camco elements on separate lines. At 230v they'd be more like 2300watts. I reckon they will also be slightly lower power than their stated rating.

I will use one pid to control both which drives two SSRs.

I think there is plenty of safety margin in a 10a socket given the oovercurrent protectors kick in at 16 amps in your fuse box. This means the wire will have to handle more than 16a I guess otherwise the protector would be pointless. I have a watt Meter on each line so will keep an eye on them as well.

I haven't run my setup yet so can't comment on speed to heat etc.

[Scott H]

I think there is plenty of safety margin in a 10a socket given the overcurrent protectors kick in at 16 amps 

Not overly, the cable in the walls for most outlets in newer houses is 2.5mm(older houses can tend to be 1.5mm even some newer houses too depends on the sparky) with 20/16a MCB's fitted for overcurrent and RCCB/RCBO fitted for earth leakage. The bigger issue is that the outlet on the wall is only rated to 10a and going much over that will result in melting the outlet.. I've seen it a few times before with people thinking it'll be fine to put a 10a plugtop on a 15a appliance.

Also DMAC, you may want to test your voltage once you have your setup running and see exactly what your getting, most of the time its between 230-240 depends largely on your distance from the transformer and conductor size, I get about 238-241v when my system is running. (5.5kw camco + 2 pumps pids ect)

[Peter Smith]

Just picked up the braumeister , its got a standard 10am male plug on it (mmmmmm    no 8 wired...) but the flex is heavy,   ment to be a 15amp socket i think from rating I am going to run it from a big PDL point so I can plug a 5500watt element into it for the big pot

[Patrick]

Which PID are you going to use?

[DMAC]

I guess my point is that 2400w vs 2500w is a pretty subtle change when all the ambient temperature variations , manufacturing tolerances etc are considered. I wouldnt run 3kw elements for example which would push things a little too far for me.

I wasn't aware that sockets are only rated at 10amp and am A little surprised as this would be the weak link in an otherwise robust system. My line of thought was that everything to the wall socket would have to be rated higher than the protection or the protection is not robust.

Rest assured I will measure the voltage. In fact I came up with 253v when I measured it, but it turned out my newish fluke multimeter was out by +20v. Makes me wonder why it cost so much.

[DMAC]

Hi Patrick. Using the standard auber ones on the electric brewery site.