Going electric?

I just started building a HERMS, and would like to go electric. My brewspace right now is in my woodworking shop, which is an old barn I rent out from a family member. The only power out there is a 30 amp 110 line (GFCI protected) and a 30 amp 220 line that is shared with a continuously running pool pump. The tag on the pool pump says it has a max draw of 11.2 amps. While brewing, the 110 line would have the lights, stereo, pump, and two fermentation fridges running. My thought is to maybe run a 3000W element on the 220 line, and a 2000W element on the 110. This should be enough heat for 10 gal batches right?

Do you think this would work? Maybe I could unplug the fermentation fridges during a brew session to keep the draw on the 110 line within range? If I do this, I think the cheapest and easiest way to control the heat would be a PWM and SSR for the 2000W element, and just have an on/off for the 3000W element. Does anyone see any potential issues with this? Any comments, suggestions, advice, etc would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

Edit: I should add that I would have one 3000W element and one 2000W element in both the BK and MLT, but wire it so that only one set of elements could be on at any given time. Just thought I'd clarify.

JuanMoore said:

I just started building a HERMS, and would like to go electric. My brewspace right now is in my woodworking shop, which is an old barn I rent out from a family member. The only power out there is a 30 amp 110 line (GFCI protected) and a 30 amp 220 line that is shared with a continuously running pool pump. The tag on the pool pump says it has a max draw of 11.2 amps. While brewing, the 110 line would have the lights, stereo, pump, and two fermentation fridges running. My thought is to maybe run a 3000W element on the 220 line, and a 2000W element on the 110. This should be enough heat for 10 gal batches right?

Click to expand...

5000W will be enough heat to do 10 gallon batches.

JuanMoore said:

Do you think this would work? Maybe I could unplug the fermentation fridges during a brew session to keep the draw on the 110 line within range?

Click to expand...

2000W on the 110 line will draw about 17A, leaving you with 8 or 9 amps of room to play with and still give margin to the 30A breaker tolerance. Your pumps uses about 1 or 2 amps, so you've still got 6 or 7 amps of head space. Fridges don't use TOO much power when they are running, but when they first kick on they use more power than normal.

How much power does your stereo draw? Is it a big monster system or just some little portable radio?

You'll probably be OK with this setup. If all the planets align (you are blasting the radio while running the 2000W element and the pump is on and both fridges kick on at the same time) then you might trip the breaker.

JuanMoore said:

If I do this, I think the cheapest and easiest way to control the heat would be a PWM and SSR for the 2000W element, and just have an on/off for the 3000W element. Does anyone see any potential issues with this? Any comments, suggestions, advice, etc would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

I think that's a fine idea. Your PWM would then let you dial in a total effective power of 3000W-5000W (60% to 100%)


One other thing to consider if you are worried about it is that you can probably power your pump (or radio or lights) from the 220V source instead of the 110V source if it is a 4-wire receptacle.

Thanks. I just needed a little confirmation that my thinking wasn't too far off base. The stereo is an antique pioneer that draws more than the average, so we'll see if I have to brew in silence or not.