beardley

Recipes 

Hi everyone,

I am stepping up in brewing. I am still doing extract boils, but finally have a 5 gallon setup. The problem is that I want to do full boils, but my stove (electric) cannot bring this much water to a boil and hold it. I would like to build an electric heating element that would either install in my 8 gallon kettle or use as a heat stick. I am not looking for opinions on heat stick vs. kettle install.

I have found a few 5500 watt 240 volt water heater elements online and it seems like this would just be the better route and would allow me to up my game to bigger batch sizes, partial mash, or even all grain brewing down the road.

Here is my dilemma. I have an unused electric dryer connection in my utility closet, but it does not appear to be GFCI protected. It is a NEMA 14-30 female socket. I checked my breaker box and the breaker does not appear to be GFCI either.

Here is the breaker:
Attachment 49053

And here is the socket:
Attachment 49054

I have found a few inline GFCI extension cords, but they are prohibitively expensive. Because I live in an apartment I cannot install a new GCFI protected breaker and I was not able to find a GFCI protected 240 volt receptacle.

Today I found out about spa panels. I can get one at my local hardware store for about $50. My question would be this. Can one of these panels be wired into a male NEMA 14-30 plug and run into the female receptacle already installed in my utility room? From what I have found, I would need to replace the breakers in the spa panel with 30 amp GFCI breakers (the spa panels I have seen online are 50 amp).

I am relatively unfamiliar with electrical work. The only experience I have is hobby level electronics and helping my dad with minor electrical repair, but I know enough to ask before I continue down this road. If this is a big no-no or cannot be done please let me know. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you in advance for helping.

P-J

Recipes 

(Your images do not show but I know what you are dealing with.)

You can get a GE Spa Panel from HomeDepot.

You would then wire it this way to your dryer outlet:



The breaker in the mains panel must remain as the existing 30A breaker.

Also, do not change the GFCI breaker in the Spa Panel as it only provided GFCI protection & does not provide over current protection. That's the job of the main panel breaker.

You can then mount a flush http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009W3A9/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00004YUNP&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0GQYM55SKX8FDCMVN661 in the Spa Panel for your brewery controller.

I hope this makes sense.

beardley

Recipes 

Your explanation makes perfect sense, P-J. I had a feeling this would be okay. Thanks for the help.