cleaning electric brew pot

I am thinking of taking my brewing to the next step and building a electric brew pot with a pid controller.Can any body tell me are the heating elements and thermocouples anything special or will anything work. I have seen all the pics on this forum but I am very worried about cleaning around the element. What about the steeping bag wount that burn the grains???? Thanks for the help.

I use J type thermocouples and ULD heating elements. I do not use steeping bags but for a while I did have my hops in bags and never had any of them burn. As for cleaning, I hose down the element after I am done brewing and hit it with a brush to knock anything off. I have really not had any issues cleaning my electric boil kettle.

Yeah same here, I just wash it out real quick with the hose. Every once and a while i'll give it a soak in PBW or Oxyclean.

thanks for the help

jcdillin said:

Yeah same here, I just wash it out real quick with the hose. Every once and a while i'll give it a soak in PBW or Oxyclean.

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+1 for me.

I've worried about having a large nylon hop bag rest on the element during the boil so I've not used them, though I haven't run any tests to see if it would be OK or not.

I just spray some water in mine and wipe it out at the end of each session.

conpewter said:

I've worried about having a large nylon hop bag rest on the element during the boil so I've not used them, though I haven't run any tests to see if it would be OK or not.

I just spray some water in mine and wipe it out at the end of each session.

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I have tried to brew without a bag for the very same reason and the amount of sediment in the bottom of the pot is just unacceptable. I use a spring load clamp to hold my hop bag to the side of the pot and lower it just enough to submerge the hops. Havent had any problems with it touching the element during 5 gallon boils and my element is some where around the 1.5 to 2 gallon mark. If it has touched the element it hasnt melted the nylon.

+1 on the PBW or Oxyclean. I'll run one of those plastic dish scrubbies around the kettle and element to scrape off any hop residue. Follow up with a hot rinse or two and its clean as a whistle. I quit using hop bags long ago, but I'd probably stay away from the nylon ones if I was dead-set on using them.

I don't understand why the aversion to the nylon hop bags. They are one of the best things that have happened to my brew day.

When my day is done, I have 9.5 gallons of water that was used for cooling the wort.

After draining the kettle, I run 2 gallons of cooling water into it, then pump out the hop junk and break material. I run 2 more gallons into it and do the same again.

I then drain the last 5.5 gallons into it, heat it with the PID set at 150F and put 1oz of OxiClean in it... I run the pump and pump the Oxi through all of the plumbing and recirculate back to the kettle.

I come back some time later and pump the kettle dry again.