Cheap MT/Boiler

[jb444]

I've been browsing this site a while and most people here seem to use a gas burner and 30qt+ boiler of some kind for all grain brewing.
I would like to try all grain properly, but in the UK this equipment is both harder to come by and more expensive, and a homebrewing friend sugested i put something more like this together:
Basically I was going to get a 6 gallon fermenting bin (or if they distort under heat, some other large plastic container), drill two holes in it and put in a kettle element for boiling wort and heating mashing liquor and also a tap to run off after mashing into another fermenting bin, then return wort back into the first bin for boiling.
Anyone else seen/made anything like this?
Only problem is malt might get burnt onto the element for thick mashes?
Will a kettle element heat up 5 gallons of water quickly enough?
Another friend at uni said he could fairly easily make a transistoried temperature seson that controlled the current though the element so i wouldnt have to insulate the thing when mashing
(although that sounds rather complicated and beyond my basic scientific knowledge)

 

[Grimsawyer]

I have seem people use a heating element in a cooler before for their HLT. Another idea comes to mind. This has almost no reguard to what you posted, the question about if your vessel would melt, etc... but It just popped in my head. If you had a food grade, high temp magneticly coupled pump(I've seen them on ebay after I bought my $120.00 for $35.00 + S&H)(DOH, UK... I think the equivelent L[sorry, don't know how to make that symbol] would be about half of the dollar amount) Maybe you could get a 10 quart stock pot and stick a heating element in it and have some copper coils for heat transfer, then back into your MLT. that would get rid of the possibility of burning any of your mash and you would have an electric HERMS system. As for boiling my mind goes blank. I suppose you could, like aforementioned, stick a heating element in a cooler to boil the wort. I've seen big 15 gallon pots with heating elements in them to do their boil and they don't seem to detect any burnt flavors so I know that can be done. I hope I was helpful.

 

[fifelee]

Check out the Powers Home Brewery. He has an electric HLT.

 

[Grimsawyer]

OMG!!! With copper prices the way they are nowdays..... It cost 4 bucks a pound to buy it at the scrap yard! 3 feet of 2" copper pipe is $75 at a local hardware store!! I can not imagine how much that stand cost to put together. Looks damn good though. I've always been a fan of copper!

 

[Lil' Sparky]

Yeah, that's pretty rediculous.