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Grimsawyer · 03-17-2008, 01:09 AM

I realllllllllly, REALLLLLLLLLLY love the idea of a heat tube that slnies and Virtouous built. I'm curious though, to get the water coming out of the other side of it at mash temps and/or sparge temps how slow would you have to run the water through it? 1qt/min? 2qt/min? 1qt/5min? I would love to get rid of my hlt altogether and replace it with something similar to THIS. As long as it can keep up with fly sparging it sounds like one hell of a divice that isn't out of the realm of possibility.

As always, thank you in advance for your imput!

**Bobby_M** · 03-17-2008, 01:14 AM

I'm pretty sure this thread get down to it. At 5500 watts, you have to run it at about 1 qt per minute.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/ditch-hlt-go-instant-electric-idea-57669/

The only real hurdle I can figure is running a dedicated 240v x 30a circuit (and having enough capacity in your panel for it). If you've got a 200 amp service with a lot of load to spare, you could run two 4500watt elements, one on each end of the pipe.

scoates · 03-17-2008, 01:55 AM

You could cheat my boil temp calculator to get a rough estimate.

http://www.phpdoc.info/brew/boilcalc.html

For example, I see that it takes ~1 minute per litre to heat water from 15°C to 80°C with 4500W. I suspect that this type of system would have a much lower efficiency, though (lots of surface area with hoses, new vessels, etc.

S

**Bobby_M** · 03-17-2008, 02:05 AM

Neat, if the numbers are right, 5500 watts is .25 gallons per minute for 40F to 168F. Why would it be lower efficiency? Wrap some insulation around the whole thing and I couldn't imagine much heat loss by the time it gets to the MLT.

**CodeRage** · 03-17-2008, 02:51 AM

I had thought about placing two 2500 W elements in the same pipe facing each other from either end and use 2 Tees for the in and out. But my house is old and really didnt want to push my service. So I figured I would just exercise some patience.

Grimsawyer · 03-17-2008, 03:17 AM

I am limited to 120V? (Is that right, just wall outlet?) Wonder if it would pop a breaker if I plugged 2 into the same socket... And when figuring watts you divide by 4, correct? What is the highest watt heating element you can get? I can find 4500 watt ones. Is that about it?

**Bobby_M** · 03-17-2008, 01:14 PM

Here, you can use this little spreadsheet to help figure out your actual output...

http://www.suebob.com/brew/elementcalc.xls

There are a bunch of different ratings available on plumbingsupply.com

Model Volts Watts Density Price & Quantity
02853 120 1500 Extra Low $20.12
02463 120 1500 Low $11.46
481000 120 1500 High $7.86
02203 120 2000 High $9.24
02163 240 1500 High $7.97
02223 240 2000 High $8.07
02243 240 2500 High $9.22
02263 240 3000 High $8.02
02283 240 3500 High $8.09
02342 240 4500 High $6.73
02583 240 4500 Low $10.32
02953 240 4500 Extra Low $27.69
02363 240 5500 High $12.51
02933 240 5500 Low $23.05
02963 240 5500 Extra Low $28.92
02613 240 6000 Low $22.82

The 120v x 2000w one would require a dedicated 20 amp circuit just to run ONE of them. You may be able to run the 120v x 1500w one on an existing 15 amp circuit if nothing more than a few lightbulbs are on it.