I am trying to get all of the parts together for an all electric system and I am just trying to figure out how many gallons I can boil with a single 5500 watt 240 V element. I just have a single 30 amp circuit available so much bigger is out of the question but I am trying to decide between mounting it in a 15 gallon boil pot for 10 gallon batches or if I could possible make a 15 gallon batch happen with just that element.
Element Sizing for Electric Boil Kettle
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jfkriege
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You probably can, but it will take a while to heat up. Insulation would be a good thing to have.
70F-170F would take 40 minutes on 15 gallons without any heat loss.
70F-170F would take 40 minutes on 15 gallons without any heat loss.
It can easily be done. You have to remember that for a 10 gallon batch your probably only heating 6 or 7 gallons of strike water. Then while mashing you can heat the remaining sparge water. So even though it will take 40 min to heat 15 gallons of water, you don't have to heat it all at once. For a 15 gallon batch i'm guessing you'd need closer to 10 gallons of strike water and that'll be a bit longer.
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? You making no boil AG batches pickles ? I should boil it, but would just take longer than more power. You could always make a 2000W heat stick to accompany the boil pot and plug into a separate standard 110/20A outlet. Then when you reach boil, pull it out.
When I sparge into the BK its already at 170F or close to it. I was referring to what jfkfriege was saying.
Here is a thread that contains a spread sheet that will give you boil times for different amounts of water and wattage elements. Play around with the numbers and figure out what will work for you. Good luck.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/ok-i-give-174284/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/ok-i-give-174284/
I have a 5500 watt element in my BK. My keggle is only 15.5 gallons, so the biggest batch I've ever done is 11 gallons. I had no problems getting 13 gallons to a boil with that element.
As someone else mentioned, the wort going into the BK is in the 150s (or higher during the sparge) so you only have to bring the wort from, say, 160 to boiling. As soon as the element is submerged, I turn on the element to get to boiling during the sparge. It doesn't take too long.
As someone else mentioned, the wort going into the BK is in the 150s (or higher during the sparge) so you only have to bring the wort from, say, 160 to boiling. As soon as the element is submerged, I turn on the element to get to boiling during the sparge. It doesn't take too long.
chefchris
Well-Known Member
but you don't run it at 100% during the boil do you? if you do, what's your boil off rate?
No! I ran it today at 65% for a 5 gallon batch, starting with a 6.5 gallon boil. I bring it to a boil at 100%, then turn it down!
Boerderij_Kabouter
Well-Known Member
IME 6000w should be plenty, hell, 4000w would likely work w/ a bit of patience and maybe a towel wrapped around the kettle.
Uh, that's more than enough.
It takes about 40 minutes to heat 10g water from 70 to boil with a 5500W element. This is a graph from a logging thermometer (I know it looks like I created it in Excel, but not.
Sorry for the big pic, useless otherwise.
Sorry for the big pic, useless otherwise.
Since I am building a rather detailed thermo model of this system, could you tell me what type of boil kettle you're using? I'm only interested in material and geometry, e.g. sankey keggle or a 20g aluminum pot, etc
Thanks!
Thanks!
Sankey keggle. I did not have any insulation on it. Thanks for the honorary engr degree! (already had one tho).
The sankey was sitting on concrete pavers, so that might play into your model.
Happy to help. BTW, I can send you this data in a CSV file if you want to load it into excel. PM me your email.
The sankey was sitting on concrete pavers, so that might play into your model.
Happy to help. BTW, I can send you this data in a CSV file if you want to load it into excel. PM me your email.
Excellent to hear that it was an uninsulated keggle. My model doesn't have and probably won't have insulation for a while so I'm happy to hear the real thing didn't as well. You, by chance, don't happen to have that data in a non-image format, do you?
Figured as much on the engr degree. Only us enginerds would understand the true impact of a data plot like that!
Figured as much on the engr degree. Only us enginerds would understand the true impact of a data plot like that!
I can send you this data in a CSV file if you want to load it into excel. PM me your email.
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