Switching a 5500watt element between 220v and 110v

Has anyone tried doing this? It seems like an easy way to mantain temp in the BK using a 3 way switch. I haven't found any threads on this (yet).

I did this a long time ago. It didn't work for me. On 110v it wouldn't boil and 220 was too much. I had to sit and throw the switch constantly. Don't waste your time.

onthekeg said:

I did this a long time ago. It didn't work for me. On 110v it wouldn't boil and 220 was too much. I had to sit and throw the switch constantly. Don't waste your time.

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Even for a 5 gallon batch size?

The reason it doesn't work well is because when it's running on 110v it's only producing 1/4 of the power, not half as you may assume. So your 5500 Watts becomes 1375, not sure if that's enough to maintain a rolling boil - but given that I'm operating at about 65% duty cycle on my 5500W element for 7G of wort, I'd say no.

With enough insulation, I could move the world! (Ok, I vulgarized that from the lever). Anyway, you can boil water with 1W with enough insulation.

passedpawn said:

With enough insulation, I could move the world! (Ok, I vulgarized that from the lever). Anyway, you can boil water with 1W with enough insulation.

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Given that we can't cover the wort for the need to boil off DMS, I wonder what the practical limit is. Sure, you can insulate the sides - but your losing a ton of heat/energy out of the top that you have to replace in order to maintain the boil.

bruin_ale said:

Given that we can't cover the wort for the need to boil off DMS, I wonder what the practical limit is. Sure, you can insulate the sides - but your losing a ton of heat/energy out of the top that you have to replace in order to maintain the boil.

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You can cover before the boil.

It would be a cool experiment to see how low I can dial down the power and keep 10g of water boiling in a very well insulated keg.