5k watt- manual power control???

Greetings,

We recently moved to a new home with an unfinished basement. The brewery area has been properly occupied to prevent a friendly/hostile takeover.

My goal is K.I.S.S. at this point and possibly moving to full automation in the future.

I am very interested in two runs of 220 in my blank canvas. From there I am considering running a 5000 w H2O heater element on each run. One run each for the HLT and the BK. I picked the 5k heater because it sounds like it has the testicular fortitude to handle 10 gal (keggle) batches. I am open to other electrical heating suggestions. I am not worried about the (in the wall) electrical wiring aspect as the family journeyman electrician will work for beer.

I have no desire to monkey with PID type temp control or constructing some kind of control board right now. Perhaps in the future this will be of interest of desirable.

With that in mind it seems to me there has got to be a simpler way. Ideally I'd just turn a dial to control output. I hit upon the idea of using an electric oven/burner control. Can anybody provide feedback/suggestions/advice on if this idea will work or another alternative.

All on topic ideas, feedback and friendly ribbing is greatly appreciated.

Loptr

Loptr said:

I have no desire to monkey with PID type temp control or constructing some kind of control board right now. Perhaps in the future this will be of interest of desirable.

With that in mind it seems to me there has got to be a simpler way. Ideally I'd just turn a dial to control output. I hit upon the idea of using an electric oven/burner control. Can anybody provide feedback/suggestions/advice on if this idea will work or another alternative.

All on topic ideas, feedback and friendly ribbing is greatly appreciated.

Loptr

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Electric stove burners work using something called an "infinite switch". There is info on this forum about them, but the main thing is that they max out at only a couple kW. You won't be able to control a 5kW element with one.

What you probably want to look into if you are a DIY person is building a Pulse Width Modulator (PWM). This is basically a knob that allows you to control the amount of on/off time your element experiences. You drive an SSR with the PWM output and that SSR switches the element on and off. They are pretty cheap to build (a few $'s).

If you don't want to build your own PWM, you can probably buy one online, but you might as well at that point just buy a PID that can work in "manual mode".... manual mode is really just simple PWM functionality and does not use temp input for controlling the thing.

loptr, i am in the same boat as you. I want manual electical control until i can afford the PID's. What i found you can do is use 2 DPDT relays to connect/disconnect electricity to your elements via a selector switch.

not trying to highjack but check out my thread called Another control panel wiring question https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/another-control-panel-wiring-question-189087/

the way i am doing it will act as an on/off switch with either 100% or 0% load

IMHO if you size the elements to batch size you can run a simple electric brewery by using simple on/off switches to heat sparge water and boil. You will have to give up a little "testicular fortitude" because you will not have as much ability to run high wattage approaching boil and then taper down to maintain. Just guessing, but 5 gallon batches need around 3kw and 10 gallons need around 4 - 4.5. Elements are cheap....play around. I don't see a need to run the BK and HLT at the same time if batch sparging so one 220 line should suffice.

Ok..for 10 gallon batches, go w/ a 5500w for the HLT. For the BK either a 4500 or 5500 if you need the TF, but my guess is that 5500 could have the wort jumping running full tilt. Linjk below

http://www.plumbingsupply.com/elements.html

I recently brewed an 11 gallon batch using 3 2000 watt heat sticks. While two heat sticks are enough to maintain the boil, I used three to boil off some excess liquid with no problems at all. Just put a fan blowing into the top of the keggle, but really it didn't seem like boil over was likely. Just a heavy boil.

Thought that might help. For an 11 gallon plus boil, 5500 may not be over top power. I believe I boiled off 2.5 gallons in a 90 minute boil with 6000 watts going.

wilserbrewer said:

I don't see a need to run the BK and HLT at the same time

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My thought on the dual line is I am thinking partygyle brewing may be a big part of what I do. So I'd need to heat a "second run" in the HLT.

I appreciate the comments please keep em coming. I am not commited to anything beyond heating via electricity.

Loptr

The simplest (circuit-wise) device that will do what you want is called a Variac. New, especially for 240V/20A, they will be very expensive. You may be able to find a surplus/used one somewhere; I used to find them laying around dumpsters near the EE buildings at my university, and have scavenged many of them for various uses.

Having said that, 120VAC, 2kW variacs (often they're rated as "kVA" instead of "kW"; for your purposes these are indistinguishable, since the water heater element is a purely resistive load) are much more available; you can find them for ~$50-$100 on eBay, and you could get more or less the same control range as a 5kW heater with a little more work: one or two 2kW heaters on switches, and one on a variac. Here's an example of what you would be looking for. Unfortunately, this requires that you go with two 120VAC circuits in place of each of the 240VAC ones you are considering. (EDIT: actually, you might be able to be clever and put a 120VAC Variac in series with one heating element, and connect the other heating element to the output of the Variac; this would give you the ability to control both elements with a single Variac.)

More complex, but possibly cheaper is a triac-based dimmer circuit that "chops" the AC waveform each cycle. (This is how electronic light dimmers are built.) This eBay item will only handle half the power you're asking for, but if you look around you may find something more to your liking. Again, an alternative is to go with 2 elements on each circuit, one of which is switched. With the above dimmer, you'd be able to stick with two 25A 240VAC circuits and run two heaters on each.

(EDIT 2: Walker's suggestion will also work, and will be reliable and relatively simple. A potentiometer and an LM311 plus some ancillary Rs and Cs and the solid state relay is all this would take; I can draw you up a schematic if you'd like. Alternatively, a microcontroller based solution would be easy, too.)

Dgonza9 said:

For an 11 gallon plus boil, 5500 may not be over top power. I believe I boiled off 2.5 gallons in a 90 minute boil with 6000 watts going.

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Ok, good information here, was this in a keggle? Just a hunch, but I think keggles use a bit more wattage due to their mass, and extended surface area w/ the top and bottom rim.

What the hell, try a 5500 in both the BK and HLT running 100% manually switched. Rather than control the boil to a certain boil off, one could merely sparge to a certain volume based on the anticipated boil off running at 100%. The downside of a system like this is you can't easily do 5 and 10 gallon batches. Is that OK?

Loptr said:

My thought on the dual line is I am thinking partygyle brewing may be a big part of what I do. So I'd need to heat a "second run" in the HLT.

Loptr

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OK cool, you just raised the bar, I bet you could repurpose the HLT as a second BK and brew 20 gallons easily in a session w/ two 5500w keggles. I see a need for a third vessel, maybe a cooler to hold the second sparge to free up the HLT as the second BK.

well you could pre heat 220 and boil at 110, that would cut the wattage in hafe to 2750w you could do this easly with a master on/off switch for each circuit, one of the hot legs hooks strate to the element after the master switch , the other hot leg would go to a 3way switch with the other pole hooked to the common leg and the load lug hooked to the element. in this set up , turn on the master switch and then depending on the posistion of the 3way you are cooking @ 5.5kw or 2750w

that is as simple as i can think of and should work nicely

Clayton said:

well you could pre heat 220 and boil at 110, that would cut the wattage in hafe to 2750w you could do this easly with a master on/off switch for each circuit, one of the hot legs hooks strate to the element after the master switch , the other hot leg would go to a 3way switch with the other pole hooked to the common leg and the load lug hooked to the element. in this set up , turn on the master switch and then depending on the posistion of the 3way you are cooking @ 5.5kw or 2750w

that is as simple as i can think of and should work nicely

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No it would cut it in 1/4 so only 1375 W

oh yeah, opps =D too much homebrew
thats still not bad to keep the boil going

Clayton said:

oh yeah, opps =D too much homebrew
thats still not bad to keep the boil going

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Yeah and you can always blast it with the 5500 w to kick it up a bit once in a while too.

Thanks everybody,

This is a good reason why I <3 teh interwebs. There are a lot of peeps much smarter than me on this topic and they are willing to share. Up the Irons!

Please keep popping suggestions at me I am wide open.

My primary goal right now is to keep costs as low as possible while being able to manage 10 ga. brews (including option to partygyle) in keggles. In the long run I can see going PID automation but that is down the road. I need to get my chest freezer full of goodness ASAP.

Suggestions so far seem to be:

1. Build/buy a PWM which requires an SSR. (a bit more spendy with SSR but easily updated to PID)
2. On/off mode (easiest, but biggest pain for maintenance of boil)
3. Multiple smaller heat sticks (can run on 120v with a few separate runs and can apply heat as needed)
4. Variac (apparently spendy) Triac- based dimmer (assuming I can find 220v compatable)
5. Two smaller elements per circuit with one on and one controlled via #4 triac
6. Pre heat with 5.5kw and boil with 1.375kw (Will this boil 10 gal batch in a timely manner?)
7. Win the lottery and forget temporary frugal means. (unlikely but sweet option)

One thought I had last night as I couldn&#8217;t sleep. If/when I move again how easy is this system going to be to run without rewiring part of the house. Being able to plug into two 220v lines is likely not realistic without modification to house wiring.

Maybe I need to consider tapping one 220v and one/two 120v runs?

Man and I thought, &#8220;Go electric, its easy&#8230;..&#8221;

Thanks all,

Loptr

Electric is no easier from a system design, but it is in usage once it's done.

Bobby_M said:

Electric is no easier from a system design, but it is in usage once it's done.

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The other minor advantage is I am not burning up all of my oxygen with natural gas either.......:cross:

Loptr said:

Thanks everybody,

2. On/off mode (easiest, but biggest pain for maintenance of boil)


Thanks all,

Loptr

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I don't think there will be any on / off for maintenance of the boil. i would just let er rip at 100%. If the boil is a bit vigorous, get a slightly smaller element.

wilserbrewer said:

I don't think there will be any on / off for maintenance of the boil. i would just let er rip at 100%. If the boil is a bit vigorous, get a slightly smaller element.

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With the 5500 w won't it be ok as long as the pots big enough to contain all the foam and not boil over. I was thinking could having a larger element lead to a bit higher efficency as your boil off should be more therefore you will need more sparge water to get your pre boil volume which will allow a bit more sugar to be rinsed out of the grains. Just a thought