Couple of questions

Greetings all from a novice electric brewer.

I'm currently still in the kitchen with an electric stove and 2000w heatstick to supplement. SWMBO has decided that brew days are taking over the space and wants me somewhere else to refine the craft. Over the next several months, I hope to build a basement electric brewery capable of creating a consistent 5 gallon batch every time. I'm hoping my fellow brewers can help me out with some information.

1. Besides cost, is there any benefit/detriment to using PIDs vs a BCS-460?

2. I'm sure the ECC forum could answer this, but does anyone know if the BCS-460 is able to adjust energy output to the heating elements? (PWM?)

3. It seems that most electric brewers are going with 10+ gallon batches. I don't currently need anything to that scale. Would it be best to go with 5500W elements or something smaller?

I appreciate any advice.

1. I've only used the bcs so I can't compare
2. Yes it does pwm
3. 4500w works fine with 5gal, 5500w works too

I like the bcs-460, especially if you have any plans that could use the functionality of the bcs. PID's are nice if you want to dedicate them to just the one task...

Thanks Rosier9.