10 gallon, all electric? (long)

Northern Brewer General
1

All -

As some may remember/notice, I did my first home brew this weekend. Had a BLAST. That said, I’m the type to always want to improve and push things farther along. I can see all grain in my future - soon.

While doing what I needed only took about 3 hours outside on the propane, I can really see the advantage of brewing inside (live in Green Bay - winters can be rough). I don’t want all the fume management issues that come with that.

So - I’m wondering if there’s a place where I could get plans for an all electric, 10 gallon capable system? I’m thinking I’d only need plans to electrify the HLT and BK side of things. Preferable something where I can set temps and have them maintained for me. Digital?

Also for sparging - batch sparging, can you use a pump for that? Is there any danger to essentially force draining the grain bed with a pump? How would someone go about sparging then? Fly sparging seems like a real PITA but maybe I just don’t have enough experience.

2

You may want to think twice about brewing indoors then. No matter what you use to boil, you’ll need a plan in place to ventilate the gallon or more of wort that will boil off.

Check out

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Yup.

3

Thanks - the wort boil off concerns me much less than burning propane in doors.

4

WOW - looking around, the cost to go electric is prohibitive for me.

That $$ buys a lot of cold weather gear. I can live with being outside at a much cheaper price.

5

I also live in a place that has brutal winters but have found a way to brew indoor/outdoor with out a problem. set up your small kettle on your kitchen stove for mash/strike water. use a cooler mash tun set up in the kitchen as well and have a burner set up outside to boil your wort. as you sparge you can take the runnings outside and when you are halfway done sparging turn the heat on and you will almost be to a boil by the time you are done sparging. at the end of the boild use an immerson chiller or as I want to do pump the wort through a plate chiller and transfer to the fermenter. doing this method you can brew some what comfortibly in -5 weather. hope that helps, :cheers:

6

You might become concerned once you have condensation dripping down your walls. Its a lot of moisture you’re putting out.

7

An electric set up doesn’t have to be that elaborate or expensive. You can get a 15 gallon aluminum stock pot for around $65[/url]. Order a 1" aluminum NPSL locknut, 1/2" aluminum pipe nipple for a valve and a [url=McMaster-Carr]4500 watt copper water heating element
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Thunder-Group-ALSKSP009-60-qt-Aluminum-Stock-Pot-/370474736777?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item564203dc89
from McMaster-Carr. Find a good welder to weld the locknut and pipe nipple in and some kind of enclosure around the locknut for the element.

You will have to spend a little on some kind of controller, once you get up to boiling you will want to throttle the element down some.

I bet you could set the whole thing up for less than $300 including a cooler and fittings for batch sparging.

8

You could also fashion some sort of hood system about your boil kettle with a strong enough fan to take the condensation outside.

9

+1. I think an economy range hood would work for that.

10

+1. I think an economy range hood would work for that.[/quote]

Look on Craigs list for people remodeling their kitchens, you can find great deals, BTW

11

HBT, http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/, has lots of people brewing electric.

12

My electric setup only cost about 200 dollars all assembled. I use a 15 gallon keg for HLT and boil currently.

13

What do you use to control the element? I’ve got my keg converted to use as an electric HLT. I have a 4500 watt element for fast heating but I want to be able to throttle it back when I get close to temperature. At this point I’m thinking of just making a switch to toggle it between 240v and 120v.

14

You might become concerned once you have condensation dripping down your walls. Its a lot of moisture you’re putting out.[/quote]
For 10 gallon batches, YEAH. I do 3 gallon stovetop batches and it’s no big deal at all. Mash in a 5 gallon cooler, boil in a 6.5 gallon turkey frying kettle. Viola!

15

What do you use to control the element? I’ve got my keg converted to use as an electric HLT. I have a 4500 watt element for fast heating but I want to be able to throttle it back when I get close to temperature. At this point I’m thinking of just making a switch to toggle it between 240v and 120v.[/quote]

I originally did the 120/240v toggle, but it was a pain. 240 was way too much and 120 was way to little. I built a PWM circuit for the HLT then, but now I have an Auber 2352 controller from below.

http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_ ... 359346fe77
16

As I understand those PID controllers - you plug in your element and a temp probe and it holds temp then?

17

In crude terms yes. The PID can be set to a temp or to a percentage of power (0-100%).

18

For mashing in, I set mine to 170 deg, and it is at that temp by the time I have the grain ready to go in the mash tun. Once I reach a boil, its usually around 62-65% that I run the controller in manual % mode.