GoNova

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Well, snap. I contacted the webrestaurantstore.com customer service department and they tell me that the pot diameter needs to roughly match the burner diameter. I'm probably not going to find a 8.5" diameter pot that can handle a full boil, right?

Any other thoughts guys?? Thanks for all the help.

Lennie

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Thats not true, especially since you are just boiling water. Yes the burner only heats a certain size but this is true of a standard electric element as well. The water/wort carries/distributes the heat from that are of the pan. I have a pan with a 14" diameter and boiled water on my hob that has about a 5" diameter burner.

Here's a reference to distance from the hob surface, they found 7mm (slightly over 1/4") is the limit and they do say that the power decreases as a function of the distance from the coil so you would want to make your weight-bearing assists just slightly higher than the hob surface. You'll have to add "http" to the front because the info is in the text under the video and this site wants to convert the link to video.

://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHI68bN2j94

JustLooking

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Lennie. Your 14" pot must pretty well cover the cooktop. Do you have any problems with it overheating? It just seems like over the duration of a 60+ minute boil the the heat from the pot would transfer into the cooktop.

My pot is a little bigger at 15 1/2" diameter, but the Avantco looks pretty beefy and is 12" x 15". It would probably still be a good idea to try to give it some extra support.

This is awful tempting. May just give it a shot. Thanks for your help!

Lennie

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Yes it mostly covers the cooktop although it doesn't cover the control panel in front and it only hangs off the sides by a couple inches on either side. I don't use any supports on it although I probably should use some wood blocks to take a little weight off the unit. The glass of the top does get quite warm but its designed to take the heat. its the same material you find on a conventional smooth glass cooktop. I expect it gets hotter when you fry, the boiling liquid should keep the temp around 212F although the pot surface probably gets hotter.

You'll probably want to insulate your pot, that will help it boil faster. I used some bubble wrap with foil-looking backing, just 1/2" thick and it really helped.

Glad I could help, I'm new to induction cooking but I'm impressed so far.

JustLooking

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Very happy that I found this thread.

Ordered the Avantco IC3500 from WEBstaurantStore.com yesterday and it got here today. It's actually dimensions of the surface that the pot sits on is 13 X 13. It's a strudy build and has no problem supporting my 15 1/2" diameter 15 gallon pot with 11 gallons of water in it.

With no insulation it took almost an hour and a half to get from 45 degrees to a boil with the lid on. Once there it held the boil with the lid removed. With insulation and when starting from mash temperature the results should be fine.

Hope to test it on the real thing this weekend.





Oh yeah, and it plugged into an existing 220V 20amp outlet that I had for a window air conditioner.

Lennie

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Perfect, its pulling about 15amps so a 20amp circuit is just right. Glad you had good results. You'll find that insulation will cut that time in half at least.

GoNova

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I am ready to pull the trigger on this as well. My only problem is that it does not seem like the Avantco plug shown here:

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/images.cfm?ItemID=177IC3500%20%20%20208%2F240&imag e_name=/images/177ic3500_pic5_xlg

fits a standard dryer outlet like this:

JustLooking

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That's a 30amp plug, not the 20amp that comes on the Avantco IC3500. You could make up a short adapter cord with a male plug like the one you pictured to fit your outlet and a female 6-20 connector (below) to plug the induction plate into.

tbelczak

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I realize this is an older thread, but I stumbled upon it when searching for info on this specific model. I was especially concerned about the larger diameter of my brewpot (15.75") and the supposed 10.25" limit in the current product listing.

I couldn't be more pleased with this unit. The same pot and volume of wort would only simmer on my gas stove or even my propane Bayou Classic outdoors.

Here is a video of the vigorous boil I was able to hold at 3100 Watts. Note that I insulated my pot with Reflectix which does not melt or burn when using induction and is safe to the touch. I also built a Reflectix cover that I used while bringing the wort up to boiling temperature. EDIT: Volume of boil is 7.1 gallons.

FermentNEthinG

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Nice! How many gallons are you boiling in that video?