Electric vs. Gas

finger123 · Apr 8, 2011

I know that I will get a biased response posting in this category but while I am sold on all of the desirable factors related to electric I am interested to know if anyone has had problems with caramelization/burning with electric. Especially with high gravity worts. I am trying to decide which is the best system for me and I am a little concerned because I plan to primarily brew very high gravity beers. Electricbrewery.com seems to say that it doesn't happen but I have a hard time believing that it doesn't happen given that there is a lot of talk about it.

J

jkarp · Apr 8, 2011

There's a lot of talk about hot-side aireration and autolysis too. Welcome to the Internet.

Been an electric brewer my whole brewing life. My system's been featured in BYO. Caramelization is not a concern, and I've done up to 1.100 personally.

Yooper · Apr 8, 2011

jkarp said:
Been an electric brewer my whole brewing life. My system's been featured in BYO. Caramelization is not a concern, and I've done up to 1.100 personally.

Me too. Well, not my whole brewing life- only all-electric for about a year and a half. But my rig was in BYO a while back also.

Never once have I had my wort scorch. In fact, while my water is heating, I can touch my element without burning myself. It's hot, sure, but not "burning hot".

onthekeg · Apr 8, 2011

I've only been electric since June of 2010, but have brewed many years. I don't have a brew system featured in BYO so my advice doesn't count.

But if you care, you won't have any worries carmelizing or scorching wort with an electric element. It won't happen if properly designed and operated.

samc · Apr 8, 2011

Only issues I've seen are with over-sized elements in RIMS tubes, overheating wort.

I once used an old copy of BYO to level out the wobbly table leg.

jkarp · Apr 8, 2011

Not that I really give a rat's patooity what y'all think of me or BYO.

I merely threw the point out there for the OP as it's been cloned many times around the world. If there was a scortching problem with electric brewing, we'd have heard about it.

ClaudiusB · Apr 9, 2011

finger123 said:
I know that I will get a biased response posting in this category but while I am sold on all of the desirable factors related to electric I am interested to know if anyone has had problems with caramelization/burning with electric. Especially with high gravity worts. I am trying to decide which is the best system for me and I am a little concerned because I plan to primarily brew very high gravity beers. Electricbrewery.com seems to say that it doesn't happen but I have a hard time believing that it doesn't happen given that there is a lot of talk about it.

J

I don't belong to the prestige electric brew club, gas only

Under normal condition the temperature never gets high enough to caramelize the sugars.
As long you have liquid around the element no scorching should happen.

Initial caramelization temperatures of common carbohydrates
Source: Food-Info.net
Sugar Temperature
Fructose 110° C
Galactose 160° C
Glucose 160° C
Maltose 180° C
Saccharose 160° C
Simply speaking, caramelization is the process of removal of water from a sugar followed by isomerization and polymerisation steps.

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

mnadamn · Apr 10, 2011

My system uses both. Each keggle has a tri-clover fitting which allows me to put in an element (elec) or a cap (gas). very little additional cost to an electric rig and you would still be able to use it on a burner. This way, you get the best of both worlds as both obviously have pros and cons.

Electric vs. Gas

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