Kettles

[jt]

Ok, may have some extra cash shortly, maybe time to look at mash tun or kettle.

probably kettle first, current one struggles to hold 23 litres at a good boil but the insulated pail tun will cope with 5kg plus a bit

What's the opinion on what's out there ?

The 40 litre urns from trademe - Dan, don't you have one of those - what's the deadspace, how's the 2000w element manage to get a boil going ?

Mr Houghs 55 litre polarware - would you dare drill a hole to fit an element in that ?

Converted keg ?

I'm staying electric, I know we've had a great summer, but I'm going to stay inside the garage where it's gunna be warm in winter

any good tips, tricks, hints or good buys out there ?

cheers, jt

[Mark]

One option is to start the element almost as soon as you start sparging - given the runoff temp I find the boil isn't too far away by the time the sparge is finished.

[MrC]

Yeah that's what I was hoping to achieve but during the boil it took 60min to get from 63C to 100C which means I'd be looking at approx 40min wait from the end of the sparge to boiling.

[MrC]

Hmm... I'm hearing some very different setups here ranging from 2.0kw to 5.5kw to achieve basically the same thing.  From the research I did I thought a 2.2kw would do a good enough job but I guess I was wrong.  It won't even hold a rolling boil with the lid off.

 

Stupid, expensive, addictive hobby...

[jt]

Yea, that's not working right by the sound of it Mr Cherry.

[Mike Neilson]

3kw and wrap it, worked for me.

[JoKing]

Hey Mr C....

 

That element should work fine - I know it seems piss poor at the moment, but you're trialling it under the most extreme conditions.

 

You need to wrap your kettle up in some thermal insulation first up. Your heatsink falling out of the walls of your kettle is massive. You need to cover the top too - you lose quite a bit up there too. Just a partial covering with the lid while your boiling is massive.

 

2nd up... you probably want to convert over to fly sparging. The reason being, is as soon as the wort covers the element... you switch the kettle on. by the time you finish your sparge... the kettle will be boiling. Just time your sparge to suit this process: if it takes 30 mins to start boiling - then sparge for 30mins.

 

I reckon if you set things up like that - your element will work mean as. (I used to have an electric element for my brewing: 2.2kW for 30L boil worked fine for me)

 

Cheers.

[MrC]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I currently fly sparge and was planning on powering up the element as soon as it's covered by wort. However my timings showed 60min from runoff temp to boiling.

Based on the comments here, I'll try insulating it and taking some more timings.

Anyone know where to get thermal wrapping?

[Richard Jack]

Any big hardware place should have that silver closed cell foam by the meter.

Edit - maybe not any one... try placemakers first that's where I got mine.

[Tilt]

The Red Shed sells double camping sleep mats (ie closed cell foam sheets) for ~$10.  Made a huge difference to my HLT - as did covering the top side as Jo suggests.

[Hugh Grierson]

The sleeping mats with the foil are good for cleaning beer off. I used warehouse mats with some car window reflector from repco over the top on my mash and lauter tuns. If you have a heat issue you could run a hybrid gas/electricity set up, gas to speed  things up and thermostat power for maintaining temps...

[Chris Banks]

Maybe an over the side immersion element along with some insulation would give you the boost you need?

[MrC]

Richard - how thick is that silver foam stuff that you mentioned. I just saw some at Bunnings and it was approx 3mm thick. Is that the same stuff?