Dual Electric Build - feedback requested

Hey,
I'm going to be building an all electric build, but I haven't seen one quite like this before. I live in a small apartment (high-rise) and we're not allowed to have grills or anything like that on our balconies (hence, electric). I thought about making an electric kettle and insulating it, but lately I've been thinking about "optimizing" recipes and experimenting.

My plan is to brew five 1-1.5 gallon batches but doing slight variations on each batch (more/less hops, different yeast, etc). I've bought six 2 gallon water jugs (like mini-water coolers) and I plan on doing secondary fermentation. So I'll transfer from one primary to the empty... clean out the old primary and use that as another secondary... repeat.

On alternating months, once the batch is done... Some friends and I will pick the "winner" and brew a full (5 gallon) batch.

My equipment setup (since doing five small batches in one day would take forever)... I'm going to buy two 1000W burners and insulate the kettles. I think this will also help with the 5 gallon brewing in that I take the 5 gallon recipe and half it... then do two 2.5 gallon boils and combine them in the end (would still take a while on the burners, but it does anyways so... oh well).

Does anyone see a problem with combining like that?

I will probably be using a counterflow chiller to cool them down (only going to have one of those, will offset the batches and alternate)

I'd eventually like to add in a PID controller... has anyone used arduino's for this before? I think one controller could handle two different pots if setup correctly.

And right now I only do extract brewing, but would eventually like to get into all-grain (I realize I might have to buy twice the equipment once I get into that, but that's not a huge concern).

Edit: I will be bottling the small batches and kegging the larger "winning" ones.

Any questions, criticism, suggestions, similar projects, whatever... I'd be happy to hear them. Cheers,

OE

do you have an example of what burner you want to use? It sounds like a 'dorm room' burner for a single pot that place your small kettles on. I would think they have dials to control the power, so I dont see you needing a PID, at least no until you start mashing with all grain.

either way, i think what you're planning should work just fine, and actually be a lot of fun, trying out all the different variations to dial in a brew pretty quickly. i dont see any real issue with the combining of the wort either, especially if you're boiling each half side by side at the same time, so theres no rest period between additions (time for nasties to get into the fermenter, re-opening, etc.)

do you plan to boil about 1/2 to 3/4 of the full volume, then add water to the fermenter, or do you plan to boil the full volume? I ask because 5500W is about standard for any brewer who is doing electric for 5gal batches, but their element is usually immersed, so there is no heat loss. I might consider a slightly more powerful element, or if you really want a fun project, try installing one of these into your boil kettles. it might be alittle over kill, but FUN!!! plus its 120V.

Yeah they are the adjustable kind... Just picked up two $15 fifth burners from amazon. They got decent ratings, and if it doesn't work out they were cheap enough that i don't mind. I do plan on upgrading at some point to a higher power immersion element, but i wouldn't be able to use two of those at once (on the same circuit). The PID part is more for experimenting with automation, which I'd like to incorporate later too.

Yeah, I plan to do full boils, but understand that it's going to take a long time... I do 3gallon boils on my electric stove now and it takes probably 45 minutes to a hour to get up to temperature.

I'm looking at getting the BCS 460 unit to start messing with stuff. I like the whole "seeing everything on a network" aspect of it.

Anyone know anything about SSRs? Can i use a 240v SSR to do 120V stuff. I'm not an EE, but i don't see a problem, it's basically an electric on/off switch, as i understand it.

Burner: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000690WNU/
and
2 gallon jugs: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ZHG9M6/

For anyone interested