Brewing with electric stove

I have an electric stove and need to know the challenges of using one to make my beer.
In the future I lpan on a outdoor propane setup. We'll see how that goes!

I have a small apartment size stove and I can barely get 12L (around 3G) to boil. For extract brewing with concentrated boils this is fine (search for late extract addition for more info). I'm an all grain brewer however so I had to go the turkey fryer route.

The biggest problem with an electric stove is boiling and maintaining a 2.5 to 3 gallons without the lid. Have you tested it yet to see how it performs?

use two brew pots if you want. that's what I used to do. two 12qt pots split all ingredients, and then you only need about 1 gallon of top off water to bring the primary volume to 5 gallons.

this also helps with hop utilization since each pot is only a little thick, instead of being 3x heavier than the final volume.

i started this way. test it out, see how long it takes you to boil 3 gallons of water on the stove. that's what i did, and i went out and bought a turkey fryer the next day. trust me, it sucks, and you can probably get a great "after the holiday" deal on a turkey fryer this time of year. i bought mine from a tractor supply store in late december/early jan. last year for around 25 bucks.

I would get yourself a nice alluminum pot. I am not trying to beat this dead horse again but I do full boils, usually around 7 gallons, on my electric stove. Now gratned, I think I have an above average electric stove, but I think the main reason I can do it is because of the alluminum pot. I have a 20qt stainless steel pot that I use for sparge water and it takes a LONG time to get 16ish qts up to 170 degrees in that thing.

I dont have any problems getting 5 gallons to boil on my range. However I think the weight of the pot is what messed up one of my elements. The recepticle the element plugs into cracked and the thing started shorting out. Replaced the recepticle and it still doesnt work. It looks like I have some more things to replace. Just a word of caution.

Sure you can go outside.... Just get one of these alone with the post holiday sale on the turkey fryer....

http://carharttimages.carhartt.com//is/image/Carhartt/X06BLK?$BLG$

With matching boots and hood too..... nah... follow this link to an easy way to do AG in a small apartment.

http://www3.telus.net/sockmonkeysandbeer/beer/HowIBrew/howIbrew.html


In this meantime you realy wont have any problem doing extract like others have pointed out.

the issue with my stove is that its a ceramic top, with heat sensors to protect the surface. if the pot gets more than .5" wider than the element, it never boils. the element only runs 5 seconds every minute, so I get stuck around 180F for a max temp. using an 'average' 5 gallon pot.

my2cents -- Patience. It takes me (30) minutes to get (3) gal to a rolling boil, plus another (7-10) minutes to get it back to a boil after adding the LME.

Some less powered burners will have problems maintaining a rolling boil, so you may need to put a lid on the pot. The key with a lid is to leave it partially open so that the junk in the pot can boil off.

Stepping on my soapbox: Kitchen fires are the number one cause of fires in the US household and putting out kitchen fires is the number one cause of fire injuries in the States. As a reminder to all of us in apartments - gas burners are illegal in some complexes, but most importantly -- Dangerous. Make sure to check your lease rules and keep an extinguisher close-by.

OneShoeBrew said:

Stepping on my soapbox: As a reminder to all of us in apartments - gas burners are illegal

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Wait, what?

he's saying its just illegal in certain residences.

it is illegal for me to use a gas burner in my apartment...and i can understand why...i would burn down the place even if i had it on my small deck.

lucky my friend now has a propane burner

I have no problem doing a 4-gallon boil on my electric range. The amount of time to reach a boil is the only drawback I can see.

DeathBrewer said:

he's saying its just illegal in certain residences.

it is illegal for me to use a gas burner in my apartment...and i can understand why...i would burn down the place even if i had it on my small deck.

lucky my friend now has a propane burner

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And only illegal if you get caught..... hmm..... you know they have them double electric burners. Some of them get real hot.

I used to brew on an electric stove, until the weight of the brew kinda damaged the stove and made the wife very unhappy. I then went to propane, which is a lot better.

when I first started brewing I used an electric stove. I was able to bring 6 gallons to a boil. It takes a long time, but if you take tin foil and cover the top, leave about 2 or 3inch gap on one side of the pot. As your pot begins to boil you can adjust how hard it boils by increasing or decreasing the gap. Its a real pain and not ideal, but I made allot of good brew that way.

I do full 6gal boils on my electric stove...takes about 45 mins to get up to temp, but it rolls just fine.

Same here, I regularly boil 7 gallons on my electric stove.

I have an 8-gallon aluminum pot that I use on my electric stove top. It spans the large burner on one side and half the smaller burner behind it. Having both burners on high is just enough to get 7.5 gallons to a boil. I'm switching to a propane setup but at least this works for now. I'd try bringing the largest volume of water you can to a boil and see how long it takes.

I have an Electric Stove and It is Like Super Human or something because it gets 4 1/2 gallons rolling in about 25-30 mins and It makes a boil that is hard to control it is a great stove, I dont know the specs on it. But it is a beast

My gas stove sucks. I need to get a turkey fryer or something. It couldn't achieve a rolling boil with the lid off. The highest temp was 207ºF with the lid off. I just brewed a fat tire clone and it never reached that rolling boil so I hope it tastes ok. I guess I should have put the top on, but I was worried about stuff getting in the beer. What I eventually did was lay a piece of paper towel across the top and put the lid on so the paper towel would absorb the liquid and prevent it from dripping back into the wort.

I'm venturing back into the homebrew woods having been out for about 8 years. I know live in an apartment also and already know my stove won't do the job. I live in Arizona and wonder about brewing outdoors on a propane burner due to dust in the air and other things. I figure the chance for infection is low due to the boiling, but should I move inside once all the cooking is done? Or is cooling outside ok too.

c8h12n4o3 said:

I'm venturing back into the homebrew woods having been out for about 8 years. I know live in an apartment also and already know my stove won't do the job. I live in Arizona and wonder about brewing outdoors on a propane burner due to dust in the air and other things. I figure the chance for infection is low due to the boiling, but should I move inside once all the cooking is done? Or is cooling outside ok too.

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You got a lot of company out there. If this was a problem I'd say we should have seen it about ten dozen times by now... and thats no joke.

Just finished the boil and the electric stove works well! Got to 220 F easily!

Did scorch the bottom of the pan andd I even stirred alot. I adjusted the heat from hi to med/hi and did fine. nice rolling boil.
It was a Newcastle(LOVE THE STUFF!) clone from Midwest Brew supply.
OG was 1.060
Its sitting now on the beer fridge in the basement at about a constant 65 F.
Should turn out well. I hope anyway!

I can get 7 gallons to boil on my electric stove, but I still brew outside with a turkey fryer. Saves my kitchen floor from getting sticky, if you know what I mean. I just need to be away from the complex a ways. The apartment management walked by today and was more interested in the brewing of the beer than any code (which I was following). Cool guys.