What would you do with 100 amps?

Here's the situation: built a new garage and when I got down to electrical found out the price was a wash between running a subpanel 150' from my house and having new service installed (I live in the city and we have long skinny lots house at front garage at back opening to an alley). I opted for the latter.

Along with the new garage I've been slowly converting from propane to electric. So the question is what would you do with all the power you could get? I had 200 amp service installed. The power company guy said there was 208 3ph service if I wanted (???).

I was thinking:

• 2 x 5500 watt @ 240v in the HLT
• 2200 watt foldback / 240v run at 120v in RIMS
• 2 x 5500 watt @ 240v in the BK

That's about 100a excluding little 120v bits & bobs (panel, pumps, radio, etc). The HLT & BK will be each be on their own 60 amp spa panel and are safely below the 80% limit. I'll run two other 120v circuits: one for the RIMS and another for other sundries. Should I worry about scorching in the BK during heatup (I plan to use two elements only during heat up in both the HLT and BK).

Anything else I should consider? Any of this just a patently bad idea?

I think you're really getting into the realm of "Just because I can" here. How big of batches do you brew? But then again I never understand half of this forum and their constant need to go bigger. Don't understand the people that have barrel homebrew rigs.

My primary goal is to reduce the amount of time I spend waiting for water to heat up. I normally do 5 gallon batches but on occasion ten. Heating strike water for a ten gallon batch outside using propane can take a long damn time. Using the calc here:

http://www.manskirtbrewing.com/Calculators.aspx

I should be able to heat 14 gallons of strike water in less than 25 mins. So it's truthfully not a "just because I can" but rather more along the lines of "can I reclaim 60+ minutes of my brewday".

iijakii said:

Don't understand the people that have barrel homebrew rigs.

Click to expand...

No $4&@!! I couldnt drink it as fast as I can brew it with a Keggle system...

unless I was retired...

Well, I'm with you on HLT power. Certainly that's going to be the biggest volume of water requiring the biggest temp rise. In the middle of winter with something like 55F water, you can get 12 gallons up to 175F in 20 minutes on two 5500w elements. No one needs it to be faster than that but if you did, just heat enough for strike and refill for the sparge. 6 gallons would only take 10 minutes, or about as long as it takes to mill the grain.

Once you have your BK element covered, you fire up the element. The wort is already at 170F and you only need another 40 degrees. A single 5500w element can get 6 gallons from 170 to 212 in 7 minutes and that's if you flipped it on with all 6 gallons on board. You'll actually be boiling before you reach your volumes (in a fly sparge) so any extra power would be a waste of hardware and points of failure.

The ONLY reason to leverage more power is if you move up to 20 gallon batches.

You only need a 50amp panel. Use a selector switch so that either the BK element can be on OR the second HLT element but not all three.

I brew 30 gallon batches with 4500 watts X 2 in BK and HLT.

One nice feature of electric brewing is the ability to reclaim all of the time that water is heating before starting the mash. I heat my strike water in the MLT by recirculating through the RIMS and heat the sparge water in a separate HLT. Everything is controlled by my BCS-460. If I set up the correct volumes the night before a brew session I can start heating things via a command over my home computer network as soon as I am awake. By the time I get out to the garage everything is ready to mash in. I can keep all but the boil element powered from 120v and only need 240v for the boil for up to a 10 gal. batch.

With all that power to the garage you are ready to charge a new electric car. Lack of charging stations is a major barrier to the cars' acceptance.

And less money spent on gas means more money for brewing!

@Bobby_M said:

You'll actually be boiling before you reach your volumes (in a fly sparge) so any extra power would be a waste of hardware and points of failure.

Click to expand...

Although I don't always mashout you're point is still valid -- two elements in BK simply not needed.

@ChuckO said:

By the time I get out to the garage everything is ready to mash in.

Click to expand...

That will be amongst the best days of my life! Personally Im comfortable with automating flipping on an electric element but much less so (read: zero) with remotely/automatically firing up a burner.

ebstauffer said:

@ChuckO said:

That will be amongst the best days of my life! Personally Im comfortable with automating flipping on an electric element but much less so (read: zero) with remotely/automatically firing up a burner.

Click to expand...

I don't have a remote switch, but I walk into the brewery (in my first floor laundry room) and flip it on, then go drink coffee and stuff and crush my grain. By then, the water is ready to mash in.

If you set it up on a timer, you could wake up in the morning to water preheated and ready to go.

A major benefit of going electric brewing is just the safety factor. No open flames, ever, and that means a lot to me.

A major benefit of going electric brewing is just the safety factor. No open flames, ever, and that means a lot to me.

Click to expand...

In terms of safety I actually prefer propane -- you can smell the gas and see the flame. Electric has neither of those built-in safety features and I believe actually warrants more attention to making it safe. Then again there's the whole CO issue with burners! I'm at risk of hijacking my own thread. Regardless, I just gave away my natural gas jet burners yesterday so Im committed to electric and all of it's benefits.

If you want to electric-brew 5-10 gallon batches, you should be more than happy with a dedicated 220 volt, 60 amp circuit for your brewery.

Really with 100 amps you could run a small house. So unless you plan on operating a commercial brewery 100 amp is more than you'd ever need. As for 208 3 phase, you'd have to be running a multiple 30 barrel setup and the associated industrial plumbing.

I was surprised at how fast 21 amps heats water. I am constantly overshooting my strike temp just while crushing grain.

I'd bet with 100 amps you could make a pretty spiffy on demand hot water setup.

OK, so I thought the way you do and did what you are thinking and went with 2 x 5500 watts for both the HLT and the BK in a 20 gl batches (28 gl kettles).

Here's my assessment...you won't be sorry. If you are doing all that the incremental cost is split over a bunch of batches. Besides, let's face it...you want it NOW.

Also, you may find (as I did) that it saves big time by doing double brews on brew day, what with the savings of complete cleaning vs. rinsing;plus interweaving the steps for the two batches. So, all the time savings add up.

Can you actually imagine a scenario in which you say (out loud); Gee I wish I did not have all this power and responsiveness. I rest my case.