How many watts to boil, around, 7g?

Just curious what you brewers use. I'm expecting my 16g pot this week. Debating going with a hot plate/heat stick combo so I can brew indoors rather than the propane burner I've had my eyes on. It gets cold here in Spokane in the winter.
thoughts? I wanna stick with 110v so I don't need to re-wire my kitchen.
5g BIAB...my first venture to the all grain world, so I wanna do it right!

I used to boil 6 gallons on top my stove with the large burner @ 1500w, but it would take 45-60 minutes to get to a boil. (Sooner if I started half of the wort while collecting the other half). But my new 5500w e-kettle can do the same thing in under 15. Down at my GF's I use her stovetop (no clue what the wattage is, but simply not enough) and a ~1400w (don't remember exactly what size) heat stick. This gets 3.5 gallons boiling (from mash temps) in under 15min and then i turn off the stove to maintain the boil.

Hope this helps a little

Helps quite a bit. Good starting point, so thank you for the info.
5500w needs 240, right? I have 3 circuits in my kitchen, so i could use a pair of heat sticks to get close to that wattage maybe, plugged into separate outlets. Or a beefy heat plate and a heat sick.
Not ready to cut my new pot...yet.

Just performed my second brew session recently with my 9 gallon electric kettle with a 2000w element. Took about 30 minutes to get 4 gallons from 70f to mash temp. Heated the sparge water while the mash was underway. Batch sparge the first half turn on the brewer while stirring for the second runnings and took about 35-40 minutes to bring the 7 gallons to boil post sparge. Boiled for 90 minutes and down to 5.5 gallons so a decent boil off rate of around a gallon per hour.

Do you have three circuits in your kitchen or three outlets? I can't imagine you'd have enough demand in the kitchen to have three circuits wired up to usable outlets.
-Kevin

One 2000w heatstick and the stovetop will easily do a five gallon batch, and likely a ten gallon batch if you are a little patient. For a reference point, I boiled just over 18 gallons in a 20 gallon pot w/ two 120v 2000w elements...granted it took a little while, but it did it.

A hot plate will not be nearly as efficient as elements in the wort FWIW.

BadNewsBrewery said:

Do you have three circuits in your kitchen or three outlets? I can't imagine you'd have enough demand in the kitchen to have three circuits wired up to usable outlets.
-Kevin

Click to expand...

3 circuits, but that includes my stove one. So two usable ones.

http://gnipsel.com/beer/software/calculators/electric-heat.xls

this is a great calculator for determining volumes and temps and how quick they change given an internal element.
7 gallons @ 1500w element. 50F to 160F takes 1h 19m. doable. but slow.
7 gallons @ 3000w element. 50F to 160F takes 40m. half the time from cold water to mash temp, but requires 2 sets of wires, 2 plugs, 2 elements.

totally doable with 1 element if you can wait longer for temps to swing.

So get this.
I get my new pot today (bayou classic brew set-up) It is real nice.
Put the thing spread on two burners on my stove. No lid. One small and one big coil. Plain water to test it out. Temp is rising about a degree a minute up till it hit 208*f. So damn close, but it won't go higher without the lid on.
I thought I could save some loot....FML

big burner of the stove + 1500w heat stick should get you there no problem. or for a more permanent solution solder a port in the side and install the 1500w element in the side of the pot.

slakwhere said:

big burner of the stove + 1500w heat stick should get you there no problem. or for a more permanent solution solder a port in the side and install the 1500w element in the side of the pot.

Click to expand...

If you have 20 amps available, I would go w/ a 2000w fwiw.