tektonjp
Well-Known Member
For those interested in the Wan Cup, it's been moved up this year to April. Get brewing!!
I have a question with regards to E-Brewing in Japan. Is 200 volt readily available in most homes? I know that 100 and 200 volt are available from some google research. I currently have a 3 vessel e-Herms that I am going to probably part out and sell or put into storage. I was thinking of getting a BREWHA BIAC, but not sure if I would have 200V available. I may end up just bringing my Brewhemoth Conical and using my 20ish gallon Bayou Classic kettle instead. At least then if I don't have the right electricity I could still fire it with propane.
Picked up a CO2 tank and dual pressure regulator the other day. Wondering where everyone has sourced their gas lines? I've found the proper ones for server setups and what not (beer-server.com and YA), but they seem a bit overpriced at 350-390¥ per meter plus delivery.
Hey all,
Been lurking on here for a while but it's my first post!
I'm going to be brewing an American wheat in the next few weeks, I was thinking of including Matcha and Yuzu (or whatever citrus I can get my hands on).
I was wondering if anyone had experience using matcha in beer? I'm thinking of adding it to secondary after whisking some up. So far I've experimented with doing 1 gram of matcha in 25ml of off-boiling water with 100ml of kirin lager. It was an improvement on the base beer but still not quite what I'm looking for.
So anyone have experience brewing a beer with matcha? (or even sencha)
Thanks!
Hi all,
It took me a few days, but i finally got to the last post in this thread.
Honestly this is the first thread i am reading here on HBT.
I am a Belgian living in Kikuna, Yokohama, and had been looking for some new kind of hobby. When typing homebrewing and Japan into google i got straight to this thread. I am totally new to homebrewing, but i have been able to learn a lot reading this thread.
I have ordered myself a starter kit of brewland through rakuten, but it comes with an extract of australian lager. I was just wondering whether i will be needing any hops for this extract. When reading the explanation, it doesnt mention anything about it.
I also noticed you guys are joining several gatherings and events, if there is one coming up, i would love to join some time and learn from all of you experienced brewers. I cannot say that i have ever drunk something homebrewed, as homebrewing is hardly done in Belgium. But i would really like to try some of those craft beer pubs here in yokohama.
My ultimate goal would be to create a beer close to a "duvel" (i am sorry for not being able to classify this beer).
Best,
Wim
So then I bought an old industrial coffee maker off of Yahoo auctions, took it apart, rewired the heater from 3 phase to 2 phase and use that. I then took the remaining stainless steel from the coffee maker to the scrap yard and got more for the scrap than I paid for the coffee maker!
Fencdar,
I can take some photos, but the setup is pretty ghetto. A simple solution is to buy a 200v water heater element off of Amazon.com (which is what I did for my bigger 60L brew kettle. Shipping is a bit silly but it works almost as well as the heater element from the coffee maker. Another solution is to use a couple of the 100V 1000W immersion heaters that plasters use here in Japan. You can pick them up at any larger home center. They look like a huge version of a travel immersion heater that you use to make tea in your hotel room.
Converting 3 phase elements to 2 phase is pretty simple for things like toasters and heaters, but you'll need to be sure that your breaker box has enough amperage and if you don't have a 200V outlet you'll need one. I believe that the heating element will draw more current on 2 phase compared to 3 phase. I've got a 50 Amp service at my house and my kettle occasionally kicks my breaker. I want to upgrade to 75 Amps.
You could also wire the element up for 100V but it won't get nearly as hot and it will draw more amperage (at least I think that is what I read).
The way the 3 phase 3 element water heater was originally wired was each wire supplied half of the power to each element. So what I did was i just connected one leg of each element to a single wire and the other side of each element to a single wire. The ground wire (very important to have anything electric well grounded). A ground fault breaker would be even better but I have yet to find one with enough capacity. People in North America usually use a hot tub heater ground fault breaker, but there are few of those it Japan.
Here are the before and after layouts of the heater element:
Originally:
L1Black--------Heater element 1--------- L3White--------Heater element 3---- ∣
L1Black--------Heater element 2----------L2Red ---------------------------------∣
Now:
∣ -----Heater element 1 -- ∣
L1Black------- ∣ -----Heater element 2 -- ∣ --------- L2 White
∣ -----Heater element 3 -- ∣
I hope this makes sense, because showing a picture of the connection box doesn't help much- you can't tell where the wires are going- but here are the pictures:
To mount the heater I put it on the bottom of the pot- this was the only flat place to mount the flat flange (it came out of a square tank). I had to cut a pretty big hole- about 10 cm in diameter. I used my dremel tool and about twenty of those little disks that fly apart if you look at them funny.
For a gasket I used a silicone pot holder from Daiso. These flat pot holders make excellent gasket material. Food grade (if you trust Daiso) and high temperature.
If I was going to do it again I would mount the heating element on the side of the pot, but it would require a bit more work- maybe some metal pounding and a lot more gasket to get it to seal to the round side of the pot.
It works pretty well, but I want to get a couple of relays and wire it up to a temperature control unit so it will maintain a constant temperature when used as a mash tun.
I'll try and take a couple of pictures for you tomorrow.
GB
I'm not sure I follow much of this, especially how you go from 3 phase to 2 phase. What are you calling 2 phase? It's usually 3 phase or single phase. Getting confused in this area can get you injured or killed. No reason to buy a 3 phase element (industrial level electricity used in big machines) and rewiring it if you are planning to use it in a residential system. Buy a standard 240 volt element on amazon international shipping (cheap shipping) and when you install in on 200v you'll get quite a bit of drop but it will work. My 4400 watt element puts out about 3300 watts and it is plenty for a 20 liter batch system.
Thanks Guzz, I look forward to the pictures.
Unfortunately, I believe the wiring in my apartment dates back before the Meiji Revolution, so the most I get is 15 amps on any one circuit, 30 total for the whole apartment! I'm not gonna be going electric any time soon, methinks. I'm still interested in seeing your setup, as I love gear porn as much as the next brewer.
Tek, there is such a thing as two-phase power, just nobody ever uses it. WIKI-POWER!
Hmm... I wonder if I can automate a gas-fired system.
4) temp control: i do not have a fermentation chamber, so how do you usually keep your temperature stabile during two weeks of fermentation? Any cheap solutions/suggestions?
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