Triple9

Recipes 

Brew life at least.

Story to date:

Converted my brew kettle to electric a couple weeks ago using Kal's instructions. My kettle is aluminum, so it was not easy getting the locknut to thread due to the kettle wall thickness, but after a bit of cursing it worked.

Installed a cheap direct vent range hood, learned to solder and put together a PWM controller thanks to the PWM...show us how thread.

Yesterday, my wife had to take the baby out for a couple hours and I decided it was a good time to give the kettle a go. Wow, can't believe how much of an improvement to the process electric is. Cut over a half hour off my brew day and did not get a single complaint about the smell when my wife got back. I was even able to work while brewing, in fact the last hour of the brew I was on a conference call. There seems to be a lot less micromanagement of the process with electric than gas, so I didn't end up hovering over the kettle the entire time.

Next steps are to put together a second kettle as the big bottleneck right now is dealing with the mash/sparge water in the same pot as the boil. After that, I'll convert the PWM to a PID and finally procure pumps and go full on HERMS.

Diver165

Recipes 

Interesting... I'm doing the same thing. How thick is your kettle wall? I want to do an electric BK and HLT and am worried I won't have enough thread on the element once I go through the kettle wall.

How long are the treads on your element? What kind of element did you use? Got Pics???

Jester

Recipes 

Good to hear!!! I am thinking of going to electric soon.

pickles

Recipes 

Welcome to the wonderful world of electric! Ive been full on electric (50A to be exact) for awhile and cant imagine doing it any other way now,

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Gaptooth Brewhouse

lschiavo

Recipes 

I just finished the boil half of my electric system and just brewed two days in a row. I am really excited to brew again. I guess you could say it has put a little "spark" back in the hobby. Sorry for that...hope I don't see any real sparks.

Triple9

Recipes 

I think the thread length on the element is 7/8" and the kettle wall is 3/8". Add the o-ring, shim washer and curvature of the kettle and it makes things a bit tough...but not impossible. I just used a cheap 3500W element from Lowes. This is going to become the HLT when I'm done and I'll use a LD element when I build the real kettle.

I'll take some pics when I get a chance in the next day or so.