110V eHERMS do-able for 10 Gal?

All, I've been trolling around here for a bit and finally decided to upgrade the bayou burner/cooler setup to a keggle based eHERMS system and build a brewstand...then ran into a snag. The house that my wife and I are renting currently is older and does NOT ahve 220 access in the garage or backayrd area. I'm only about 20' from the main panel in the backyard, but its an older style ZINSCO panel and new breakers (let alone GFCI) are not available for it, so that ruled out running 220 to a spa panel right there(unless the landlord wants to install a new panel ). I do have access to a dedicated 20A circuit though...which made me beg the question if that would be enough to run the eHERMS heater to MAINTAIN temps...I would be doing the main heating of the strike/sparge in the kettle with propane. So to clarify, brewday would start out with heating about 13gal of water to around my strike temp, then transferring to the HLT/eHERMS keggle that has a 5500W element running on 110 (so it would actually be running at 1375W, and pulling 12.5A). Here is where I can do fine tuning of my strike temp via PID control then mash in and start recirculating. Just over half the original volume of water is still in the HLT covering the HERMS coil. When the mash almost done I'll raise temp to mash out and to get the sparge water up to sparge temp, then batch sparge. Has anyone succesfully done this with 110? Is this enough wattage to maintain mash temps since the primary hearing is done in the kettle with propane? In the next year or two when we buy a place, I'll have a dedicated 220 feed and use 5500W elements in all heating vessels with a proper control box setup...but until then I would like to use something like this to help maintain mash temps better. Pics of brew stand to follow soon as well. Cheers!

That will be fine for maintaining a set temp, it will even heat to your set temp also but it will be painfully slow. You will want to stir your HLT water also so you don't get stratification around the HERMS coil.

Yeah, I saw a formula somewhere for calculating temp rise based on volume and watt input and also concluded that heating the water would be painfully slow. Unless I wanted to put the PID on a timer to start att the butt-crack of dawn so its ready when I wake up. Good to know that it should be enough wattage to maintain my temps for herms though. I'm really looking forward to being able to convert to all electric and be able to build a dedicated brewery INSIDE. I'm still on the fence as to whether I want another pump for recirc the HLT water or a stirrer...leaning towards the pump since the cost is only slightly more and I can fly sparge if I so chose on my single tier.

Carl - would you mind sharing the formula for heat rise based on volume and wattage?


Thanks!

This is a fun site (look at the thermal section).

http://www.infinitepower.org/calc_watts.htm

There will be a-lot of loss (additional time, maybe never) if you don't insulate.

Using the calculator, I get, with 100% efficiency, 1009 watts will bring the 10 gallons from mash-out temps to a boil in about 1 hour.

Using a 1200 watt heater, on a 120Vac 20 amp circuit with moderate amounts of insulation should be able to get 10 gallons from mash-out temp to a boil in about an hour.

I am planning an electric boil for 6 to 12 gallon boils, and plan on a 1200 watt heater. I will put some money into a ramp/soak controller and have the system dial back once it hits a rolling boil.