120v 2000W, will a longer element or narrower pot inprove boil?

I currently have a Camco 2000W HWD element in my kettle, it sticks into the kettle about 6 inches. My kettle is a 10g Concord kettle, ~14" in diameter.

I've been playing around with the boil the last few days, to see how it's working. With the lid on I can get a vigorous boil at 208 degrees. Water boils at 207.4 here in Idaho. As soon as I take the lid off, the temp drops to around 203-204. I'm getting what I would consider a weak boil / strong simmer and it mainly seems centered over the element.

I'm not really happy with the boil and am trying to plan my next move. I don't think insulating the kettle will help a whole lot. I haven't tried it, but it seems like I'm loosing most of the heat via evaporation without the lid.

1. This is for the garage, so I only want to run one line to the kettle.
2. I'm planning on brewing 3 gallon batches. If I want to brew more than 3, I'll just do a double brew or maybe supplement my kettle with a stove.

So my four options are as follows.

1. Upgrade to a 2000W ULWD element. I'm hoping that maybe the longer element with more surface area, will get me a better boil, but I'm skeptical this will happen.

2. Down size my kettle, move to a turkey style 26-30qt kettle, a narrower kettle would reduce the surface area and hopefully reduce the heat loss from boiling.

3. Kinda of a stretch but, two 4500 240v elements running at 120v in parallel. Give me a total of 2250w and with two elements I should be able to get good coverage, but seems overkill.

4. Give up on the 120v and go to 240v. Seems a bit overkill for a 3G system.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Josh

Yes, a smaller and narrower pot would help. Most people seem to get 5-6 gal boiling on 2kw. Personally I would try insulating your pot first and seeing if that works. If not, decide on adding a second 120v element or downsizing your pot.

Changing the shape or surface area of the element won't do anything for you. Any 2kw element will transfer the same amount of energy to the wort. The only thing that will improve the boil will be to reduce the heat loss through the kettle walls, mainly by insulation. Couple that with changing the pot geometry to a narrower kettle should help. Even if you had 100% efficiency you would only be able to achieve a boil off rate of 3.37qt/hr.

I'm working on something similar, a 2.5gal system as a BIAB project with 2kw to run in the house in winter as it's too cold in the garage to use my 10gal system.

You can also insulate the lid, and partially cover the kettle during the boil. You do need to let steam escape to boil off DMS precursors and the like, but there is no real difference between getting a narrower kettle and partially covering a wider kettle, if the open surface areas are the same.

ChuckO said:

Changing the shape or surface area of the element won't do anything for you. Any 2kw element will transfer the same amount of energy to the wort. The only thing that will improve the boil will be to reduce the heat loss through the kettle walls, mainly by insulation. Couple that with changing the pot geometry to a narrower kettle should help.

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+1 to all this. You need more power, and/or insulate, and/or use a chimney.

A 2000W element puts out 2000W (at the rated voltage), doesn't matter how it's shaped or its size.

Kal

Are you seeing a weak boil with water or wort? I thought I had a pretty weak boil too when I was testing mine with water. When I tried a batch anyway, the boil looked a lot stronger with actual wort. I'm doing about the same - 2.5 gal batches on a 14 in wide pot with 2000w element.

Other thing I can suggest is making sure you are getting the right voltage at the element to be sure you are getting the full 2000w.

jybingbrew has a good point - water in larger volumes doesn't tend to appear to "boil" very actively. I get a tons of emails from people wondering why when they test their 5-20+ gallon setups with only water why the boil isn't vigorous... I always tell them to try it with wort instead.

Kal

Good point, I haven't tried with wort, only water.

-Josh

How did this go? I recently finished my set up and I am having the same issue. 2000w/120v and I have a small boil, if any. I get to 209 degrees. Well, I think it does. I need to calibrate the temp probe. The water doesn't seem to boil but I guess I'll have to try it with wort. I also, haven't used insulation. It was just a trial run. First electric practice brew!! Pretty awesome

I actually just recently changed out my brew kettle and it made a big difference. Specifically, I switched to an 8 gal Tall Boy Kettle from Northern Brewer, which has a 12.5 inch diameter pot. That made a huge difference, because it narrowed the surface area considerably (was 14 in before) and a lot less heat was lost as it evaporated.

That being said, I used my old pot with a much gentler boil for many many batches and they all turned out well. So, I wouldn't sweat over it.

Yeah, I live in Hawaii so getting a pot shipped out here is pricey! I'll stick with what I have for now. Thanks for the info

Just as a follow up for me, I went to a 5500w 240v element.

Maybe this isn't the right thread for this, but why do you want a vigorous boil other than boil-off to bump your gravity? Boiling temps are only 204-205 (unknown measurement error?) for me in the mountains, anyway. With my 3500 watt induction burner, I could achieve volcanic boiling with 7.5 gal, but it would still only be at 204 deg. I guess I'm just curious if others have additional reasons for wanting this. If you still do, I would insulate first as mentioned above.

DogSlobber said:

why do you want a vigorous boil other than boil-off to bump your gravity?

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Many reasons.

The wort must be vigorously boiled to maximize alpha acid extraction from the hops, drive off unwanted volatile compounds (like precursors to DMS), and coagulate unwanted proteins.

A rapid simmer will not do. You want a vigorous hard (rolling) boil.

Kal

jeffmeh said:

You can also insulate the lid, and partially cover the kettle during the boil. You do need to let steam escape to boil off DMS precursors and the like, but there is no real difference between getting a narrower kettle and partially covering a wider kettle, if the open surface areas are the same.

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Based on this and this, I'm not sure I'd worry much at all about DMS with at this point. I'd go so far as to say you can boil with the lid on and to your heart's content without worry of DMS if you are using modern malt.

kal said:

Many reasons.



The wort must be vigorously boiled to maximize alpha acid extraction from the hops, drive off unwanted volatile compounds (like precursors to DMS), and coagulate unwanted proteins.



A rapid simmer will not do. You want a vigorous hard (rolling) boil.



Kal

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Interesting! Aside from the volatile compounds, though, are alpha acid extraction and protein coagulation functions of the vigorous boil or just temperature? And do those of us at altitude have to correct for poorer extraction due to lower temp boil?

Interesting! Aside from the volatile compounds, though, are alpha acid extraction and protein coagulation functions of the vigorous boil or just temperature? And do those of us at altitude have to correct for poorer extraction due to lower temp boil?

DogSlobber said:

Interesting! Aside from the volatile compounds, though, are alpha acid extraction and protein coagulation functions of the vigorous boil or just temperature? And do those of us at altitude have to correct for poorer extraction due to lower temp boil?

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Vigorous boil is required. Not sure how much temperature plays a part. I've never heard of brewers at higher altitudes being worried about their beer or trying to boil "harder" because their boiling point is (say) 208F instead of 212F. I doubt it makes much of a difference.

How vigorous you need to boil is also open to debate. There's certainly not a black and white thing. There are lots of variables at play.

Kal

broadbill said:

Based on this and this, I'm not sure I'd worry much at all about DMS with at this point. I'd go so far as to say you can boil with the lid on and to your heart's content without worry of DMS if you are using modern malt.

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Very interesting experiments. That said, they compared 30 min to 90 min boils, so there is no real data on covered boils. I'll continue with vigorous boils, as it easy enough to do and provides an extra margin in the case that the DMS precursors are present. I do not doubt that in many modern malts there is none present for all practical purposes.