120 v heating element

Hope you all can help. I brew 5 g batches in my kitchen and I am very happy with it. I use a 10 g kettle and a 56 qt cooler for mashing. I have a ranco controller left over from some reptiles I used to keep. I use a gas range which has a powerful burner.

My goal is to add a 120 v element to both the mash tun and the brew kettle.

I want faster boils and ability to step mash.


I can DIY or buy commercial. Just want something easy. Thanks

A 1600W element will draw about 13A - from memory, the Ranco can drive that directly. Without a way to recirculate the mash however, I don't think you're going to get the step mash result you want.

Don't forget if you're planning on running MLT and kettle elements simultaneously, they need to be on separate kitchen circuits.

you do not want to put a heater element directly in your mash tun. It will very likely scorch the grains and leave some unpleasant flavors.

Walker said:

you do not want to put a heater element directly in your mash tun. It will very likely scorch the grains and leave some unpleasant flavors.

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I could see a setup where a temp controlled element was below a false bottom with a pump to loop the wort around working OK.

jkarp said:

I could see a setup where a temp controlled element was below a false bottom with a pump to loop the wort around working OK.

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yes, that's true. I should have said "not directly in the mash". if it's just in the liquid and separated from the grain,, it would probably be OK.

the element in the mash did not work for me. heat transfer through mash is really bad, i scorched the bottom and the top temp didnt go up hardly at all. I pushed a floating thermometer to the bottom and the temp right near the element was 190F. so i tryed stirring figured couldnt hurt it any more constant stirring helped but is not the answer. im going thinner mash and hermes
kensig

You really don't want a high density element in the mash. Probably, you need to look into a RIMS setup for that, possibly a HERMS. There are reasons brewers go to the trouble of creating RIMS and HERMS systems, wort scorching is a big one.

Try adding boiling water for step mashing, it works pretty good.