I am really impressed with my electric RIMS chamber that I bought from brewershardware.com that I am thinking of changing my HLT and BOIL KETTLE over to electric as well. It would be really nice to be able to brew inside my garage with the doors closed.
I live in a new home and do not have a 220v circuit in my garage. I have electricians in the family and installing one would not be a problem but I don't want to worry about permits, etc.. With that being said, are any of you using a 110v circuit to bring your beer to a boil? If so, what amps are you using? How long is it taking you?
Are you using a heat stick?
Electric Heating Question
Re: Electric Heating Question
I'm all electric but being on the other side of the world I am working to 240v with a 2400 watt element - and that brings the boil (from about 60 deg celcius) up in about 40 minutes and holds a rolling boil with about 12% per hour evaporation rate at 25 deg c ambient. Hope that helps a little.
Re: Electric Heating Question
While I think you could do it with 120V, you are limited to 1650Watts for a 15 amp circuit, or 2000Watts for a 20 amp circuit. You would have long ramp up times to get to strike temp or from mash to boil.
When I was researching this, I found a table that showed times to heat the HLT from 70 to 160f. This table showed a 1650 element taking 45 minutes to heat 5 gallons. You may need to use a second element (on a different circuit) to speed things up if that is too slow.
I decided it was worth adding a 50amp 240V sub panel in my garage. I am currently using 2 5500Watt elements, one in the HLT, and one for the boil kettle. I wired my control panel to use only 1 element at a time, so it only needs a 30 amp circuit. I just got this set up working and brewed for the first time on it with my BCS last night. Biggest difference between electric and propane? The noise, electric elements are virtually silent.
Brent
When I was researching this, I found a table that showed times to heat the HLT from 70 to 160f. This table showed a 1650 element taking 45 minutes to heat 5 gallons. You may need to use a second element (on a different circuit) to speed things up if that is too slow.
I decided it was worth adding a 50amp 240V sub panel in my garage. I am currently using 2 5500Watt elements, one in the HLT, and one for the boil kettle. I wired my control panel to use only 1 element at a time, so it only needs a 30 amp circuit. I just got this set up working and brewed for the first time on it with my BCS last night. Biggest difference between electric and propane? The noise, electric elements are virtually silent.
Brent
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JonW
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Re: Electric Heating Question
Brent - what are the heating times with your system? Do you have a link to or can you post the table you reference?
I love the fast heating using natural gas, but it would be nice if my whole stand wasn't 500 degrees!
I love the fast heating using natural gas, but it would be nice if my whole stand wasn't 500 degrees!
Re: Electric Heating Question
Here's a spreadsheet that I ran across awhile back that is very handy for calculating ramp time. I wish I could track down the original author for credit, but I can't find his site.
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JonW
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Re: Electric Heating Question
Great spreadsheet. Any thoughts on whether using a RIMS tube with continuous circulation would have nearly the same efficiency as an element placed directly in the kettle? Im not talking about for the boil, but more for the HLT (sparge water) or MLT (strike water). Based on the spreadsheet, it would take 25 minutes (w/ 5500 watts) for it to heat from 70 to 160. How long might that be if it was heated in a RIMS tube? There has to be some efficiency losses.
Re: Electric Heating Question
I think it is going to be MUCH slower because of all the losses in the recirc circuit.JonW wrote:Great spreadsheet. Any thoughts on whether using a RIMS tube with continuous circulation would have nearly the same efficiency as an element placed directly in the kettle? Im not talking about for the boil, but more for the HLT (sparge water) or MLT (strike water). Based on the spreadsheet, it would take 25 minutes (w/ 5500 watts) for it to heat from 70 to 160. How long might that be if it was heated in a RIMS tube? There has to be some efficiency losses.
You are gonna loose heat in the valves, hoses, pump, and even the RIM's tube.
On the spreadsheet you can set the efficiency if you can figure out how to calculate it.
Good luck,
Ed
Re: Electric Heating Question
@JonW
I do not have a complete data log from that brew session, my log starts out with HLT at 126. My manual notes indicate I used 11 gallons of tap water and it took 42 minutes to get to strike temp. I think my tap water is about 60f right now. 42 minutes was in line with the time when I was using propane, but it sure was quieter.
I attached the log file, trace0 is HLT, trace1 is mash tun, trace2 is boil kettle, trace3 was disconnected, but is the CFC output temp. Overall I was very pleased with my first run results.
I do not have a complete data log from that brew session, my log starts out with HLT at 126. My manual notes indicate I used 11 gallons of tap water and it took 42 minutes to get to strike temp. I think my tap water is about 60f right now. 42 minutes was in line with the time when I was using propane, but it sure was quieter.
I attached the log file, trace0 is HLT, trace1 is mash tun, trace2 is boil kettle, trace3 was disconnected, but is the CFC output temp. Overall I was very pleased with my first run results.