I have been wanting to set up a brew station in my basement for some time now and have been looking into electric kettles. High Gravity Brewing website has some pretty cool products and I think I could build one of my pots with a heating element. Are there any issues I need to consider with electric brewing vs natural gas? I have a blichman burner currently, but figured I would be safer with electric in the house. But…I need a good exhaust hood either way, so is it a waste to switch to electric?
yup - what TG said - very happy with my electric setup, modeled after Kal’s on that site.
Thanks! Looks like I have a bit of reading to do. By the looks of that site, I need to start saving some more money. LOL
Electric brewing is, imho, the only way to go. No fumes, no CO, no trips to refill the propane tank, no freezing my butt off in the winter, no hauling kettles full of hot liquid from outside, no scorching the bottom of the kettle. And energy costs are much lower.
There is a ton of info on the electric brewing forum of Homebrewtalk but be prepared for a lot of reading since it is a huge forum. Personally, I did not want to go with a lot of automation like you find in theelectricbrewery so I simply added 4500w 220v elements to my HLT and boiler, insulated them, and control them with a simple PWM that you can find in the forum above. Turn the knob for more or less heat, just like an electic stove. No thermocouples, no PIDs, no programming, no pumps, much less expensive. However, it can be upgraded if I ever decide to go HERMS. It works great and was fairly easy to build. You might get by with 110v elements for 5 gal batches but it will take much, much longer to get up to temp so use 220v if you possibly can.
If I had it to do over, I would use a cooler for the HLT rather than a kettle. Drilling holes would be easier in plastic, and it is already insulated.
In the brew room I installed a bathroom exhaust fan vented to the outside and I wish I had used one with higher CFM to keep the humidity lower in the room while boiling. It isn’t a big issue but it would be an improvement.
Do a little research before you start, and good luck.
Uncle
