How much power for 12-15 gallons?

I am thinking about setting up an electric brewery. I have a dedicated 30amp 240v plug for my welder that I could use. Would this give me enough power? How long would I be looking at to get 15 gal to boil? Would a single 5500 or so do it, or would a pair of 3500's be better?

Thanks

A 5500 watt element would be more than enough for that size brewery. Check this out for details of a pretty darn nice one that uses all electric on the same 30 amp circuit.
www.theelectricbrewery.com

I use a 5500 watt element in my 10 gallon set up for the HLT and HERMS system and it is way more power than I need.

You could go as low as a 4500W element. The 5500W would give you a little more power and would be a nice way to go.

Joshua

You can drive about 7000 watts with 30 amps.

Some quick estimates for raising 15 gallons of 50 degree water to Strike:
4000 - 69 Minutes
4500 - 62 Minutes
5000 - 56 Minutes
5500 - 50 Minutes
6000 - 46 Minutes
7000 - 40 Minutes

Raising 12 gallons of 170 degree wort to boil:
4000 - 19 Minutes
4500 - 17 Minutes
5000 - 16 Minutes
5500 - 14 Minutes
6000 - 13 Minutes
7000 - 11 Minutes

Those estimates on 15 gallons of strike water may be a little conservative. I can bring about 11 gallons of cold water to 155 in probably 10 minutes with my 5500watt heater. Although I'll admit I've never timed it, so I could be off on that estimate.
Next time I brew I'll time it to see what I'm actually getting. But, it seems pretty fast regardless.

They aren't real world for sure - I just pulled them from the boil calc spreadsheet I found here.

Yeah, I'd say my times are better with 4500W than those listed, too. I also don't have hard data yet, so I'll time it tomorrow when I brew.

TB

I have found on my system (4500W) that I can move 15 gallons 100 F in about 50 minutes. For 5 gallon batches, the time is half that. It is a nice quick system.

I made the choice to use 4500W elements so that I could have two of them on a single 50A circuit (as a side note, 9000W makes for fast heating to mash in). If you are going to have just a single element, then there is no disadvantage to having the 5500W element and I would go with that.

You only want to go to 5500 watts on a 240 volt, 30 amp circuit. 7000 watts takes the circuit to the max it can hold before tripping.

240 volts x 30 amps = 7200 watts. That is max load. Multiply that by .80 to get a working load, 7200 watts x .80 = 5760 watts.

If you were to run a 7000 watt element, the wiring and breaker will quickly start to heat up and the breaker should trip. If the breaker should fail, well, let's just say you'll have a whole other set of problems. Also, 240 volts is a very optimistic number for voltage into a house. Usually the power coming in is about 210-215 volts. The power company will usually run lower to prevent power spikes from damaging equipment. So, if this is the case;

210 volts x 30 amps = 6300 watts x .80 = 5040 watts.

Take a voltage tester on your dryer outlet to find out how many volts you really have and use that number for calculations. If you don't want to do that, use 220 volts and you should be safe.

MadViking said:

You only want to go to 5500 watts on a 240 volt, 30 amp circuit. 7000 watts takes the circuit to the max it can hold before tripping.

240 volts x 30 amps = 7200 watts. That is max load. Multiply that by .80 to get a working load, 7200 watts x .80 = 5760 watts.

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Exactly right. Thanks for posting this... you saved me some typing.

Also, 240 volts is a very optimistic number for voltage into a house. Usually the power coming in is about 210-215 volts.

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That's *really* low. If you're only getting 105-107.5VAC from your regular outlets, I'd talk to the power company. You should only see sags that low *maybe* during the hottest parts of the summer when A/C units everywhere are running.

The lowest I've on my 240V into the control panel is low 230's.

For example, here it says 236V:



The element is off here. If it's on the voltage drops an extra 2-3 volts.

Looking at some of my other pics I see a few with 239V. One even with 244V!

FYI - In the end it should really matter. It'll just take slightly longer to heat up the water if it's under 240V.

Kal

Kal, I agree that the voltage coming into the house from the power company can vary widely.

I was just trying to draw upon my experiences as a residential electrician and what the power company linemen told us about the power coming into the house. They said that the power company generally kept the voltage lower to help handle any sudden spikes in the system caused by a sudden demand in power or a failure in the system that diverted power. The power could surge resulting in damage to sensitive equipment like tv's and computers.

Now, it's been 12 years since I was a residential electrician so things may have changed a little bit and since you got me curious about it, I went and measure the voltage coming into my house. I was getting 116/232 volts at this time, 10 pm on a Saturday evening, higher than what I originally stated, but still not quite 120/240. I will eat my words and admit I was incorrect in stating such low values.

Still, utilities vary from city to city, state to state and country to country. Hour to hour and day to day demand also vary widely. I'm sure that equipment monitoring has improved greatly which has allowed the voltage to inch up with smaller swings, but due to the nature of electricity, there will be swings. But, this is all off the main point. Don't run a 7000 watt element on a 230 volt 30 amp circuit because it is not designed to handle it. Use a 5500 watt element max. Nuf' said.

I just pulled up 122.3 and 244.1 Fluke 87 this my normal constant be it off hours or peak. IBEW 29 years.

Agreed that there will always be variances in what you get a the wall. When EE's design the equipment you plug into the wall you have to assume that. Most consumer electronics we plug in runs at fairly low DC voltages so the first thing that happens to the 120V AC power is that it's rectified down to 3-20VDC. So usually it doesn't matter at all what the AC power coming in is: It could be anywhere from about 40V to 200V (within reason). The farther off it is however the harder the solid state rectifiers will work at dissipating the extra energy (as heat).

Other stuff we plug in that's 100% AC (like toasters, heaters, etc) work at whatever voltage they're supplied so it doesn't really matter if it's off by even 10-20%.

Moral of the story: I wouldn't worry about what you measure at the wall. The equipment we use and plug in is able to work just fine at pretty wide ranges.

MadViking's true however that you can't (or shouldn't) pull 7000W on a 30A circuit. That would be overusing it. I agree with the 5500W max rating.

Happy brewing!

Kal

That or upgrade to a 40 or 50 amp breaker, wire or cords to handle the load and use 50 amp twist-lock plugs. How deep is your wallet as you could run higher wattage elements?

Try it again, oops.

Add one of these to your control panel for a clean looking system not requiring you to drag around the feed extension cord.
http://www.levitonproducts.com/catalog/model_3775.htm
This is cheaper;http://www.bizrate.com/electrical-supplies/oid1991006065.html

BrewBeemer said:

Try it again, oops.

Add one of these to your control panel for a clean looking system not requiring you to drag around the feed extension cord.
http://www.levitonproducts.com/catalog/model_3775.htm
This is cheaper;http://www.bizrate.com/electrical-supplies/oid1991006065.html

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That's exactly the principle that I use. Mine's the 30A version (not 50A). This allows the massive power cord with built in GFCI to be separate.

Pictures:





Instructions on how I built the power cord (assuming you decide to go with 30A, not 50A): http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/control-panel-part-2?page=4

Kal

I have nothing of substance to add, just gotta say that's the sexiest thing i've seen all day--including the porn!

Consider me your Brew Porn pimp.

Kal

i have 200A service in to my house and just replaced the box with a bigger 40 spot in order to facilitate my kitchen remodel. The 2 large loads are my wall oven (40A) and my AC (30A i believe). I'm actually working off of kal's writeups and was planning on using 1 5500W element for the BK. Since i have the spaces and power is there any advantage to using say 2 smaller elements that add up to more on a larger circuit besides time to boil? Does it make it easier to control?

Right now my "to buy" sheet has 2 5500W elements, one for HLT and one for BK. Assuming everything is working the way it should does the BK even need as much? I mean we are heating 150 or so water to boil so its already most of the way there. I can probably just save the money on the extra costs associated with going to 40 or 50A.

btw, all of this is assuming 10G batches so 13-14 initial boil

I would (and did) use one larger element instead of 2 smaller ones. Less cost, less to clean, less to hookup, less connections, less likely issues.

Sometimes people will use two smaller elements in the BK only with on/off switches (no PID). They leave both on until they hit boil, then turn one off to maintain boil. I essentially do that by running the BK PID at 100% and then turning it down once the hotbreak is done.

The jump from 30A to 40 or 50A is a big one and requires lots of more expensive parts with (at least to me) zero added benefit since I never brew two batches back to back. When I designed my setup it was a conscious decision to limit it to 30A.

Kal

flyerwire said:

i have 200A service in to my house and just replaced the box with a bigger 40 spot in order to facilitate my kitchen remodel. The 2 large loads are my wall oven (40A) and my AC (30A i believe). I'm actually working off of kal's writeups and was planning on using 1 5500W element for the BK. Since i have the spaces and power is there any advantage to using say 2 smaller elements that add up to more on a larger circuit besides time to boil? Does it make it easier to control?

Right now my "to buy" sheet has 2 5500W elements, one for HLT and one for BK. Assuming everything is working the way it should does the BK even need as much? I mean we are heating 150 or so water to boil so its already most of the way there. I can probably just save the money on the extra costs associated with going to 40 or 50A.

btw, all of this is assuming 10G batches so 13-14 initial boil

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One disadvantage to using multiple smaller elements to get more power is that you need to have multiple SSRs to control them. And any other ancillary hardware like contactors (If you're using them) as well.

I would stick with 5500 watt elements for simplicity. JMO

yeah i kind of talked myself out of it in the post but i already spent all the time typing it so i just posted it

I'm going to basically be mimicing kal's setup but with a BCS-462 for a controller. Once i started thinking about the pretty decent ramp up in costs going to 40 or 50 i went back to thinking that one 5500W is just fine and dandy. No problem running the box/controller, 2 pumps and one heating element? How fast do the kettle lose heat? Is the cost worth the benefit for wrapping them to help prevent heat loss while sparging or mash?

i also need to figure out a less expensive venting solution to use in my basement!

If you HERMs or RIMs, insulation shouldn't be necessary as you constantly compensate for the kettle losses.

If you don't plan to constantly recirc it could make sense.

planning to HERMs, figured it would be overkill, one less thing to buy. My gas system is going to be decommed after 2 more batches and hope to have it all ready to go via electric for early spring... plan to do it all in 2 stages, all of the kettle work one weekend and then all of the wiring, etc. I can push through wiring but it usually makes me want to punch myself in the head so i take it a bit slower.

Pots are damn expensive, but the bilchmann setup for a MT looks so much better then other options. They are about the same cost as stout tanks, but stout has some pretty long lead times.

I'm partial to the Blingmans

If you have the power available, go big. You don't HAVE to use it, but it's there if you need it. It's also more efficient too, because you spend less time losing heat to ambient if you heat faster. (It's probably negligible, but hey...)

yeah, i really like their false bottom design, and of course their pots are beautiful. I can't wait to not have to worry about running out of gas... or when you are low in the winter having it freeze up outside... and the wonderfulness of being able to brew inside... thats exciting!

flyerwire said:

yeah, i really like their false bottom design, and of course their pots are beautiful.

Click to expand...

If you manage to get one without a warped false bottom.

wildwest450 said:

If you manage to get one without a warped false bottom.

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1) i can't stop staring at your avatar...

2) thats been a problem? doesn't sound good for the money you are paying

flyerwire said:

1) i can't stop staring at your avatar...

2) thats been a problem? doesn't sound good for the money you are paying

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It was for me and at least one other hbt'er (Layne). They did replace it after 10 e-mails, and far to much effort on my part. I actually wasn't that impressed with the fit and finish of the kettles either.

For the amount of money I spent on these things they should be perfect.

Note the awesome rust on the bottom of a never used $400 kettle, not cool.

wildwest450 said:

I actually wasn't that impressed with the fit and finish of the kettles either.
For the amount of money I spent on these things they should be perfect.

Note the awesome rust on the bottom of a never used $400 kettle, not cool.

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I'll make a note of this thread, thanks.
Function before BlingMan.

Yeah but for a mash tun is there much better function?

flyerwire said:

Yeah but for a mash tun is there much better function?

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I would think not.
I like their false bottom design with punched circles, it's the $129.41 for 30 gal that's too steep for my taste then add the 30 gal tun.
Both would cost $682.95 after tax in my area, I keep thinking of those past warping problems.