Is anyone using a hot plate for their boils? If so, what is the most efficient one to use? I’m doing 5 gallon batches. I obviously don’t want to wait hours upon hours to get up to temp.
As I mentioned in another post, I do HVAC controls for a living and just scored a few PID controllers. I have aspirations of building an automated brew setup and wanted to control the hot leg on an electric hot plate through a relay based upon water temp. I want a 2 burner setup. 1 for sparge water and 1 for the wort.
For a partial boil, it might work. For boiling 6+ gallons, I doubt a commercially available home hot plate will have enough capacity to bring it to boil. I should have a duel burner 1500w unit in the rafters. If I find the time I may be able to do an experiment for you.
A PID system should not matter on a boil pot. Boiling is boiling. Although there is a “rolling boil” and there is “jump out of the pot” boil. It should still be 212* (adj for your elevation).
I started brewing with a hot plate eons ago. We did partial boils for the exact reason Nighthawk indicates below - not enough power to get a boil. I think our first brew took 4+ hours from tap water to extract to a full hour boil.
[quote=“Nighthawk”]For a partial boil, it might work. For boiling 6+ gallons, I doubt a commercially available home hot plate will have enough capacity to bring it to boil. I should have a duel burner 1500w unit in the rafters. If I find the time I may be able to do an experiment for you.
A PID system should not matter on a boil pot. Boiling is boiling. Although there is a “rolling boil” and there is “jump out of the pot” boil. It should still be 212* (adj for your elevation).[/quote]
That’s what I was thinking. I only wanted to automate it “because I can” lol. I was thinking it was a possibility it wouldn’t be very efficient…I just wanted to make sure before I tried it.
I built a electric system you will want to get a pot, 15 gal is a nice flexible size for 5-10 gal batches. Cut a hole and fit a hot water tank element i used a 4500 watt element. Then build a control box with a PID (I used a auber PID). This is the only easy way to bring 7 gal or more to a boil. The 4500 watt element does my 10 gal batches (13 gal in boil) easily. There are many electric systems at homebrewtalk that will take you step by step.
