Moving to Electric, need guidance

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waffle418

I'm too drunk to taste this chicken ~ Colonel Sand
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I have been lurking in the electric brewing for a while and have decided its absolutely the way I'm headed. In fact, I've been asking for pieces for all the gifts as money is tight and its time to move to a control panel setup for birthday gifts. Right now I'm planning on an eBIAB until I can get the parts to go to a HERMS design. What I need help with is picking out a size for the control box, the design (I will have 2 keggles with 5500 ULWD elements on 240v - 50 Amp) and what a good stop gap would be until I can get everything to go from eBIAB to full eHERMS system.

If this is confusing, I apologize, I'm trying to do all this from memory as my family , specifically SWMBO, are really on me for birthday gifts!

UPDATE

... is this thing on? Ok so after a few months, I've saved, stolen and found the funds to complete the build. I've got keggles set up weldless, I got the elements (2 5500 W) for Christmas last year and have been sitting on them all year. Finally got the electrician coming out Sunday to put a 100 Amp subpanel in the garage and set up the 50 Amp for starting the electric brewery. I'm going BCS as my WHOLE family no longer calls me for anything but Tech Support which is ok. I have the spare parts to build a small pc right next to the brewery to run everything and I'm going with PJ's design (huge thanks for everything you do for the electric guys) for the one below. That makes this just another build, but I'm going to try and document as best as possible.

BCS-460-wiring-2-4-c.jpg


Oh and I happen to be a fortunate person who has family in the restaurant business so a stainless prep table or a refrigerated prep table will be my brewing surface. I'm leaning towards the refrigerated table to try and turn it into a fermentation table at the same time. I'm going to start building a parts list for whats remaining. So wish me luck!
 
A BIAB control panel will not need much space at all. A full HERMS control panel with all of the bells and whistles that you may prefer will probably take up more room. It's theoretically possible that you could buy just one panel and just drill more holes in it when you move from BIAB to HERMS, but you'd have to do some careful planning ahead of time.

I found a nice steel 16"x20"x8" panel for only $56 with shipping (used) on eBay, so there are deals out there. You can fit pretty much anything you'd ever want in a brew setup in a 16x20 panel.

If this were my build, I'd just buy a small plastic panel for the BIAB, maybe like a 10"x10"x6", and then buy a bigger steel one for the HERMS when I knew what I wanted in it.
 
A BIAB control panel will not need much space at all. A full HERMS control panel with all of the bells and whistles that you may prefer will probably take up more room. It's theoretically possible that you could buy just one panel and just drill more holes in it when you move from BIAB to HERMS, but you'd have to do some careful planning ahead of time.

I found a nice steel 16"x20"x8" panel for only $56 with shipping (used) on eBay, so there are deals out there. You can fit pretty much anything you'd ever want in a brew setup in a 16x20 panel.

If this were my build, I'd just buy a small plastic panel for the BIAB, maybe like a 10"x10"x6", and then buy a bigger steel one for the HERMS when I knew what I wanted in it.

That may be exactly what I do and that would also allow me the ability to flip to a BCS if I choose too... I am still up in the air about that so it was one those things I'd like to get a bit more into using electric and figuring out if I want the automation or not...
 
waffle, check out my build in my sig. can start easy with a toolbox, figure out what works / doesn't, then move to a full steel enclosure. my thinking was that i don't need a caddy as a first car. a toyota is fine...
 
waffle, check out my build in my sig. can start easy with a toolbox, figure out what works / doesn't, then move to a full steel enclosure. my thinking was that i don't need a caddy as a first car. a toyota is fine...

My Prius appreciates the analogy!
 
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