my electric brew pot

over last few weeks i have been piecing together electric brewpot, i use 2 round coolers as a mash and liquer tan, it worked and fits perfectly since i just moved from a house to apartment

i sold my brew rig with propane burners to fund this project
i used:
7.5 steel brew kettle $60 shipped ebay
richmond 4500w 240vac element $10.28 menards
40A relay w/ heatsink $13 shipped ebay
acquarium pid $16 shipped ebay
home depot electric box $12
25Amp GFCI Cable $15 I bought a lot of seven, i still have some let me know if you are interested $25 shipped nationwide
dryer outlet $5
silicone ring w/ locknut $14 shipped from bargain fittings
pc molex cable, thermal paste
and 1 gang box with couple of covers ~2
dryer electric cord $10
= $157 total
i sold my 15 gallon brewpot from spikebrewing locally for $120

i have not polished the set up yet, but i just had a trial run to test things out

more pics

i would like to thank homebrewtalk members for providing me with great resources, and advice making this build possible

Sorry in advance for the negative reply.

Those pictures are like lifting the skirt of an obese grandma with no panties. I can't help but look away. You need an electrician to come look at your work. Where do I start...

Goocher said:

Sorry in advance for the negative reply.

Those pictures are like lifting the skirt of an obese grandma with no panties. I can't help but look away. You need an electrician to come look at your work. Where do I start...

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While not pretty, I don't see anything alarming or unsafe. Looks like a perfectly functional utilitarian build to me. Not everyone has money to build fancy shiny control panels with lighted switches and all...

Goocher said:

Sorry in advance for the negative reply.

Those pictures are like lifting the skirt of an obese grandma with no panties. I can't help but look away. You need an electrician to come look at your work. Where do I start...

Click to expand...

If you read my post I said that it was a hookup test, I am gonna seal the 1 gang box , and I plug my system in already prewired electric stove outlet

everything works great, Although I have a degree, I don't believe that people need to have specific title in order to qualify do silly electrical work like I did

yev

Yevmeister said:

If you read my post I said that it was a hookup test, I am gonna seal the 1 gang box , and I plug my system in already prewired electric stove outlet

everything works great, Although I have a degree, I don't believe that people need to have specific title in order to qualify do silly electrical work like I did

yev

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You're right. For non-permanent installations, you can do as you like. Call me silly, but having exposed wiring with "kill you" kind of power around a pot of water, makes me nervous....

Had you "polished up" your wiring prior to testing, I would have been less apt to voice my opinion. I'm not rich and don't expect everyone to have fancy polished systems. But safety should be everyone's goal when dealing with this amount of current.

To offer a constructive piece of information, make sure to ground your outlet box. From what I can see, the ground goes directly to the outlet.

Edit: I have the exact same controller for my ferm chamber. I noticed your temperature sensor is in the water. Do you have anything protecting that? From what I remember, I don't think that's a sealed sensor.

thanks for the grounding tip do you think i might have to paint the electric box if i were to ground to it, or its not necessary

as far as sensor, since the described application is for acquariums it would be submerged anyway

other than those two, i will report with further modifications soon

Yev

Yevmeister said:

thanks for the grounding tip do you think i might have to paint the electric box if i were to ground to it, or its not necessary

as far as sensor, since the described application is for acquariums it would be submerged anyway

other than those two, i will report with further modifications soon

Yev

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Are you asking if you need to paint after grounding? No.

You got me on the aquarium NTC sensor. I guess in practicality it can be submerged but since it's a Chinese part, I can't find a specification sheet with details. The descriptions says -50 to +90 for the controller. After handling one myself, it doesn't feel like something that could be boiled. I may be wrong. I'd give it a taste test to see if it's leaching anything into the liquid. Boil some water in a tea pot and pour it into a glass with the sensor. Let it cool down, then taste it. If it tastes fine, then I guess I'm wrong...

Goocher said:

Are you asking if you need to paint after grounding? No.

You got me on the aquarium NTC sensor. I guess in practicality it can be submerged but since it's a Chinese part, I can't find a specification sheet with details. The descriptions says -50 to +90 for the controller. After handling one myself, it doesn't feel like something that could be boiled. I may be wrong. I'd give it a taste test to see if it's leaching anything into the liquid. Boil some water in a tea pot and pour it into a glass with the sensor. Let it cool down, then taste it. If it tastes fine, then I guess I'm wrong...

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Seriously? You are telling someone to have an electrician check out their work and how life threatening their project is, and then advising them to boil something and then taste test the water to see if it is leeching chemicals into the water?

I didn't tell him to drink the whole glass, just taste it. Little anal are we? Anybody with electrical know-how can look at his project and get worried.

flatulentfox said:

While not pretty, I don't see anything alarming or unsafe. Looks like a perfectly functional utilitarian build to me. Not everyone has money to build fancy shiny control panels with lighted switches and all...

Click to expand...

How about not grounding a box that has no cable grip or grommet on the line coming in? Sound safe?

well. There are 2 outcomes to this.
1. its safe and all will be fine
2. its not safe and he will kill himself.

if its 1. all is fine and dandy

if its 2. he will kill himself and there will be one less stupid person on this earth. Its called natural selection, and im all for it,lol.

Im not saying he is stupid. I hold myself to those same standards.

you guys crack me up LOL

i am all for natural selection too, anyone can be a subject to that

Yev

Goocher said:

I didn't tell him to drink the whole glass, just taste it. Little anal are we? Anybody with electrical know-how can look at his project and get worried.
How about not grounding a box that has no cable grip or grommet on the line coming in? Sound safe?

Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across like a jerk. Rereading my post, it seems that way, that was not my intention.

As far as being electrically sound (I have experience as an industrial electrician):

No, the construction of the system as it is now would not be up to par as a "finished" product. However, seeing a few components wired together and powered up on a table is a normal part of putting together a system. The chassis of the outlet is grounded and connected to the electrical enclosure. Ideally there would be a ground conductor attached to a grounding post in said enclosure. I got the feeling fron the OP that this was a test to make sure everything worked together.

Sorry to derail the thread, back on track.

On bit of advice to the OP:

Keep an eye on temperature inside the enclosure during the break in period. With the heat sink for the SSR inside and little or no circulation, you run the risk of overheating and thus shortening the life of your SSR. You might consider mounting the heat sink on the exterior of the enclosure.

Good luck!

thank you very much, i was thinking installing a mini fan to draw air out of the enclosure, grounding is done

will keep you guys posted

Yev...I think its a nice start, just be careful with the electric!:rockin: However, I'll offer my take on your setup as it might help when you go to brew.

The aquarium controller is strictly and on off device and does not offer the PID/PWM (pulse width modulation) function of true PID temp controllers. If you set this controller for 100C with a 1C offset, it will turn 100% off at 100C and remain off untill it hits 99C and then turn 100% on until it gets back to 100C. Depending on your volumes of wort and the air temp where your brewing, you'll have a nice rolling boil when its on, but just hot wort when its off and it could possibly be several minutes between these cycles.

A lot of people (including me) just run the element 100% of the time giving you a very vigorous boil (which is good for your beer), but can cause excessive boil off. Not to worry, you can just add water back in the carboy to get your correct OG and volume. In this case, you don't need a SSR or controller, just wire the heating element direct to the plug and plug it in!

A lot of people also use a temp controller with a PWM function that allows you to set the % time the element is on and you can controll the amount of on/off time more precisely and reduce your boil off rate to a degree. It is based on a control period that you set in the controller. I usually use 4 seconds. If I set the PWM to 75%, the controller turns the element on for 3 seconds and off for 1 second, over and over and over. The vigorous boil continues but my boil off declines as I'm putting less heat in that gets released as steam.

The Auber PID's are like $35 or check out the other threads on PWM. You do not need a temp probe to do PWM. And if you do "upgrade", that controller you have now is easily repurposed to a fermentor or kegerator. Also you already have everything you need to do this "upgrade" as the wiring will be exacly the same, just 2 wires to the SSR control contacts.

Brew On!

thanks for info, i noticed when i got to 100 C relay tripped, and boil stopped until temperature dropped below set specs.

i guess i will go with REAL PID in the near future

Yev

got stuff properly grounded and properly encloses watertight
will attempt to brew first electric batch tmrw