any regrets going electric?

After looking around a bunch on the threads, the one question I didn't see asked does anyone regret, or has anyone switched back to direct fire after going electric? I am currently running a single tier 3 keggle set up, and was thinking of adding a control panel. After a little more looking, and the fact that I am tired of all of the propane refills, I am thinking of switching to electric. It seems more efficient, more reliable than an automated burner set up, and, well, cheaper to run at the end of the day. Plus its a good excuse to build something new. After switching anyone have any regrets?

None. Cheap to operate. Instant control, clean and very quiet.

No regrets here. E-brewing is far more controllable than direct fire (IMHO), in most cases faster, and definitely marries well with E-automation. The only real limitation I can foresee is if you want to move to a 3BBL+ brewing rig. But then you're more than likely looking at steam anyway - yet a different can of worms.

Make the move. You won't regret it! Flickin' the bic is fun, but flickin' the breaker's much easier.
PLOVE

Opinions on herm vs rim? For those times I want a step mash, my current set up is rim and I don't have any scorching problems with a direct fire, any problems with the heating element contacting the grain if I stick one in the mash tun? Ok, I admit in being a bit lazy asking this question and should search the forum.

No regrets. Love it. And I went with HERMS, but that's just me. After my research it seemed the safest bet. And I can step mash with it as well.

I went from stovetop extract to electric all grain. The only thing I would recommend is run 6/3 wiring so you can run both elements at the same time, especially if you go HERMS. I already had 10/3 for my compressor so I plug into that right now but will be upgrading soon.

Good luck.

I absolutely love my new electric setup (only done 3 batches on it) and I have no regrets. The only complication I have had is that I find cleaning more difficult because of the extra cords.

ebrewing is amazing, not a regret at all, best investment for my brewing enjoyment year round! The only drawback is you'd need to wire up and drill more than one kettle if you wanted to move from say a single kettle to three or something, where with propane you could technically just move your burner around.

Single vessel eBIAB, two 1500 elements running off 120 with a pair of simple switches. Easy to build, clean and store and low cost. I'm very happ with it and would recommend that others try it too.

I love my Kal clone and gave no regrets. Making great beer and having a blast doing it!

no regrets going electric at all. It is so much cheaper per batch than propane.

I wish I had done it earlier.

HERMS by the way.

No regrets at all going electric. It has made it possible now for my 2.5yr old assistant brewer to actually hang out during the boil.

For easier cleaning I may have gone with a quick disconnect power cord for my kettle so it didn't have a permanent tail like it does now. Glad I went with 6/3 so I can run everything at once without tripping anything or starting fires.

I started with electric because I knew I was going to brew in my basement and felt it was the only safe way.
But I will say it's really convenient.I can set my HLT temp for 170 and go mill my grain while it gets up to temp.
Also,I don't feel rushed because it will hold whatever temp I tell it to for as long as I want it to :rockin:

Ooh, almost forgot to mention sous vide! Perfectly done roasts/steaks/etc. My wife particularly loves that aspect, because being pregnant she isn't supposed to have beef anything other than well done. However, with the e-brewery I can serve up pasteurized med-rare steaks. Electric brewing FTW!

TheDom said:

.For easier cleaning I may have gone with a quick disconnect power cord for my kettle so it didn't have a permanent tail like it does now. Glad I went with 6/3 so I can run everything at once without tripping anything or starting fires.

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I did that. I have about 2 feet hanging off the bk. it tucks into the handle for storage.

Zero...Nada...Zilch....love it and have no regrets. My brewday is faster and more consistent. I am running a 5500w element on a PID and consistently hit my boil off target. Price wise it is a lot cheaper than gas and always available.

LOVE mine. I will never go back to propane or natural gas burners. It's totally awesome- indoor brewing, 10 gallon batches, and all set up whenever I want to use it.

The thing I love the most is the quiet. It hardly seems like you're brewing without the afterburner noise from the burner.

The sous vide thing is a great bonus too. A small table-top sous vide machine will run you up to $800 and will let you cook a couple pounds. Meanwhile, your MLT made out of a 14 gallon keg and $50 worth of parts will let you cook half a cow.

No regrets at all after probably 50 batches with it - love my electric brewery. Also did a HERMS - if you already have a temp controlled HLT, it makes sense to add a coil into and and your HERMS is ready to go.

Love my electric system. I went HERMS and will never go back to fire. I agree that a huge benefit is the lack of noise.

the only limitations i see for my electric system:
1) cannot do back to back batches. this is mostly due to the fact that i only have 40a 240v service to the garage and run 5500w elements in my BK and HLT. i don't do this often (barely ever), but i could downsize my elements if this was a major issue for me. as it stands i want water hot as fast as i can get it. it's more important than back to back to me.
2) decoctions. again, i don't do these, but i didn't identify this was an issue. i could always use a little banjo burner when i wanted to, but electric isn't conducive to this.
3) my immersion chiller no longer gets nearly as deep as it used to. this means cooling 5 gal batches is harder. this just occurred to me as i usually run 10gal, but bought a 5 gal recipe to try a few weeks back. considering going to a CounterFlow Chiller as that won't matter as much, and just using the IC for a herms coil (right now it's herms coil and IC double duty)

all in all i love my electric over my propane setup. quiet, automated temp control means it's more accurate, i actually get my water up to temp faster from cold to mash temp, mash to masth out, runnings to boiling. i can sous vide with it, the brew stand isn't 500 degrees anymore, no carbon monoxide so i can brew with the garage closed.

seatbelt123 said:

Single vessel eBIAB, two 1500 elements running off 120 with a pair of simple switches. Easy to build, clean and store and low cost. I'm very happ with it and would recommend that others try it too.

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I have the same setup in each of my kettles except I'm 3-tier gravity, mash tun, etc. Only thing I wish I had was more power circuits run to my brewing area. That way I could do back-to-back batches. I can certainly change that. Hell, my whole house needs to be re-wired at some point (1940's house, "updated" in the 70's)

Portability is my only gripe. We have a homebrew club at work, but there isn't a 30A, let alone 50A like I use at home, receptacle available to power my system. So I can't bring it in to show off or to brew on. We have to rely on those propane folks.

No regrets at all.

In fact, I simply would not be able to brew if it wasn't for the fact that I went electric and am able to brew indoors. Doing the same with gas would have been a nightmare.

Kal

I guess I can agree with the portability issue. Hard to load up the rig and find a power source at your destination.

But back to back batches all depends on your situation. I had to run the power to my garage specifically for my system, so I ran 60a 240v and used 4500W elements. So I can use both the HLT and BK at the same time. I can do two 10gal batches in 6 hours. Thats 20gal beer in 6 hours!!!

No regrets. 8 batches through my HERMS so far, beats the heck out of my previous Top Tier system in every way. Especially now that I'm brewing in my basement with winter fast approaching.

brrman said:

I guess I can agree with the portability issue. Hard to load up the rig and find a power source at your destination.

But back to back batches all depends on your situation. I had to run the power to my garage specifically for my system, so I ran 60a 240v and used 4500W elements. So I can use both the HLT and BK at the same time. I can do two 10gal batches in 6 hours. Thats 20gal beer in 6 hours!!!

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I do single vessel BIAB and if I want to do two batches I will mash in an unmodified cooler while I heat strike water for the second brew.

I transfer strike water to buckets at a higher temp than normal (185 or so) then empty cooler contents into kettle with bag in place to mash-out. I then mash second batch while boiling and chilling first batch. Takes about 6 hours start to finish including cleanup.

I've been doing this for about 5 months now and hardly do a single brew anymore because it is so easy to do a double.

The only downside I noticed was a general increase in chill haze. After brewing all electric for the past 4 years, I am going back to a gas-powered boil kettle for the next year. My goal is to see if the chill haze was related to an under-powered boil (or perhaps "dead space" below the element) or some other process step. If it turns out electric brewing was completely unrelated to the problem, I'll probably go back.

DrPaulsen said:

The only downside I noticed was a general increase in chill haze. After brewing all electric for the past 4 years, I am going back to a gas-powered boil kettle for the next year. My goal is to see if the chill haze was related to an under-powered boil (or perhaps "dead space" below the element) or some other process step. If it turns out electric brewing was completely unrelated to the problem, I'll probably go back.

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How many gallons were you boiling with what sized element?

Dead space below the element doesn't matter. Boiling wort is in constant churn.

Kal

I typically do 5.5 gallon batches (~7 gallons of boiling wort) and occasionally do 11 gallon batches. I've been using a 4500W element. I can't say precisely with what duty cycle the element is run b/c I wired up a 555-timer-based PWM controller instead of using a PID, but I typically average 1 gallon of boil-off per hour. If I had to guess, I'd say I run it at a 75-80% duty cycle.

You should be able to get a very vigorous boil with 4500W in 5-7 gallons of wort.

Kal

slakwhere said:

the only limitations i see for my electric system:
1) cannot do back to back batches.
2) decoctions. again, i don't do these, but i didn't identify this was an issue. i could always use a little banjo burner when i wanted to, but electric isn't conducive to this.

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I have absolutely no regrets for my system either. Best brewing decision I ever made.

I wanted to touch on the above statements too. I worked off of Kal's pioneering (thanks Kal!!) and kicked my design up a notch so I have the capability to run two 5500w elements simultaneously. This has huge benefits if you are a back to back brewer (I am) or if you work with large volumes of water (consistently brew 10+ gal batches. My set up is 60amp, powered off a subpanel with two 30 amp gfi breakers to achieve this. I say all this because I built my first controller very simply and found it wasn't enough. Consider where you want to go and what you want to do before you take the plunge. i.e. build the panel that you will grow into (cause they aren't cheap to build). If you aren't the building type, Kal just released his 50amp prebuilt version.

Decoctions (IMHO) can easily be done on electric system, so long as you use a propane burner to cook your decoctions (haha). Probably not a big issue if you are coming from gas to electric. I heat my decoctions on my old gas burner and it works well to add into the steady mash temp I maintain on the electric side.

one last comment. If you plan on doing lots of step mashes I would recc. looking into RIMS (I have a herms). you can make step mashes work on a herms, but they aren't ideal. A herms is designed for single infusion mashes and that is where it excels. There is only one brew I do that requires step mash, so I am ok with dealing with that when the time comes.

Good luck!

kal said:

You should be able to get a very vigorous boil with 4500W in 5-7 gallons of wort.

Kal

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I think the issue I'm experiencing might be due to the element height, leaving an excessive amount of "dead space" below the element. In the middle of a very vigorous boil, if I flip on the pump and cycle wort from the bottom of the keggle to the top, it immediately stops boiling for 3-4 mins. I've tried adding insulation to the bottom of the kettle with little improvement. I've even considered adding some type of electric heating element in the bottom of the kettle, but haven't been able to find any formable/shape-able immersion elements.

I've looked closely at your videos and have noticed that my wort never forms as clean of a protein break as yours does.

For now I'm moving from an electric keg to a gas-fired Stout Kettle. In a few years, I'll probably punch a hole in the side of that and install an electric element just to compare.

I like to step mash, so I was already thinking I would go the rimms route. Cidah, you mention that you upped it to two 5500 for doing 10+ gallon batches, and maybe others can chime in. From looking at kal's sight, I was under the impression that 10 gallon batch's (which for me is really 11 gallons at end of boil, usually 13 1/2ish gallons preboil on average) would be no problem on one element? your reason for the upgrade?

I step mash my sours and high gravity beers, so I had decided that rimms was the way to go. Agreed, I was already planning on over building the panel with the thought easier to grow into than add later, and since i currently have a perfectly functional propane brutus clone I brew on, it is helping in my patience to build the panel out completely first.

i step to mash out temps with a single 5500W in a herms setup for 12 gallon batches. from 154 to 168 in about 10 min. so a rims would for sure do it.

I also step mash with my HERMS quite nicely. I have 11kW in my HLT/HEX so I do it in half the time slakwhere does

Emc said:

I like to step mash, so I was already thinking I would go the rimms route. Cidah, you mention that you upped it to two 5500 for doing 10+ gallon batches, and maybe others can chime in. From looking at kal's sight, I was under the impression that 10 gallon batch's (which for me is really 11 gallons at end of boil, usually 13 1/2ish gallons preboil on average) would be no problem on one element? your reason for the upgrade?

I step mash my sours and high gravity beers, so I had decided that rimms was the way to go. Agreed, I was already planning on over building the panel with the thought easier to grow into than add later, and since i currently have a perfectly functional propane brutus clone I brew on, it is helping in my patience to build the panel out completely first.

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I only use one 5500w element for my boils (typically 11g or 13-14 preboil). What I was saying is that I have two elements, one for the HLT and one for the BK. I can run those elements simultaneously. This allows me to boil and heat strike water, or maintain a herms mash while boiling another beer. The key difference in my system is that you can fire two 5500 elements at the same time, which allows me to do back to back batches, among many other things, to speed up a multiple batch brew day.

FWIW: I have boiled about 22-23 gallons with the lid on my insulated pots with one element (on accident). I pulled the lid off and the boil continued to roll.

I am not saying that you can't gain heat in your herms tank quickly, but the question is how long does it take for your MT to equalize to your step? This is something that has been discussed at length in these forums. How long should a step take to be an effective step mash? i.e. your step mash "starts" when the entire grain bed is at the step temp, so if it takes you 20 minutes to rise to that temp, you are at 20 for the rise, and the time of your step.

If you push your recirc too fast you will compact the grain bed, if you go slower it takes forever to increase the temp in your MT evenly across the grain bed. How does this lag time and inconsistency affect the enzymes, per the step?

A step from 154-168 isn't really a step mash or that crucial it is just a mash out step. I am talking about making steps from a protein rest to sach rest, etc. For example for my witbier (the only recipe I consistently do a step mash for) the schedule would look like this:

Step 1: 113F (5 minutes)
Step 2: 144F (35 minutes)
Step 3: 154F (20 minutes)
.....

The hardest and longest step would be from 113 to 144F. It would take for ever in a herms, no matter how fast you recirc through and no matter what your element size. The only way I can make it work quick is to mash thick and add hot water to boost the temp.

The only other way is to overheat your hersm. So heat to maybe 160F and run your mash water through that quick to bring up your step quickly to the whole tun. But does this denature the enzymes some since the wort going through the coil is getting over heated then dumped back into a cooler body of mass in the grain bed? It still isn't a quick step by any means.

Cidah can you highlight the steps you go through to do your step mash on the witbier?

Just to throw in a data point here;

I do a Wit in my HERMS, which is a single 220V 5500W element.
I run a step from 122F to 154F, which takes almost exactly 30 minutes to rise. That's with a 16.12lb grist at 1.5 qt/lb, recirculating with a march pump wide open the whole time. The beer turns out fantastic.