E-Brew Planning assistance

[Mellman]

Hi All,

i've been lurking in this section for the past year at least and I am finally ready to begin ordering equipment. My uncle is an electrician and we've been planning out some of the panel and wiring. Finalized my 400A service upgrade to the house because I wanted plenty of ampacity in the house.

In any case, I have a brewing shed attached to the house, I am planning a 4 element 2 pump system, with the ability to run all 6 devices simultaneously.

we were discussing running a sub panel into the shed, with a 100A breaker, and then using 4 25A breakers to feed into the Brew control panel. Seems like a bit of extra work compared to how most are doing it, but most I see on here are just using a single 50 or 60A breaker to power the entire setup. Since i plan to run all 4 elements (5000w) simultaneously, along with 2x pumps, i need more power.

Should I just run 2x 50A outlets into the shed and connect the panel into that? or am I better off with the 100A sub panel?

 

[waffle418]

Hi All,

i've been lurking in this section for the past year at least and I am finally ready to begin ordering equipment. My uncle is an electrician and we've been planning out some of the panel and wiring. Finalized my 400A service upgrade to the house because I wanted plenty of ampacity in the house.

In any case, I have a brewing shed attached to the house, I am planning a 4 element 2 pump system, with the ability to run all 6 devices simultaneously.

we were discussing running a sub panel into the shed, with a 100A breaker, and then using 4 25A breakers to feed into the Brew control panel. Seems like a bit of extra work compared to how most are doing it, but most I see on here are just using a single 50 or 60A breaker to power the entire setup. Since i plan to run all 4 elements (5000w) simultaneously, along with 2x pumps, i need more power.

Should I just run 2x 50A outlets into the shed and connect the panel into that? or am I better off with the 100A sub panel?

I can safely say that having a subpanel at my house was a must. What happens if you trip the breaker at the box in the middle of a brew? Especially in a brew shed, that means you're running back into the house to the box. Or are you talking about having a Spa Panel type setup where the breakers are in the brew shed? At a minimum, I'd put whatever breakers you plan on using nearer to you than having to leave your shed.

As far as design of the breakers, I'll leave that to someone that has more knowledge on the topic.

 

[Mellman]

yup - my plan was to have the breakers in the brew shed next to the panel. Basically a 100A Spa panel, or something similar, for some of the reasons you're suggesting. But wasn't sure if that was how others did it since most folks are just doing a 30-60a build.

I'll continue on!

 

[jeffmeh]

There are obviously quite a few options here, but I think the most constraints are going to be around GFCI protection, so you may wish to figure it out first. If you can find a 100a GFCI breaker or spa panel at a reasonable price, you could go with that, bring 4 gauge wire to your control panel, and use 4, 25a breakers in the control panel itself. That would be clean with only one power feed into the control panel, but I have not seen 100a GFCI spa panels or breakers (and a cursory google search doesn't yield much).

You definitely can find 50a and 60a GFCI spa panels priced less than 50a and 60a gfci breakers (go figure). One slick method would be to get the 50a GFCI spa panels first, to get a 100a subpanel that is compatible with the spa panel breakers, and to move those GFCI breakers into the subpanel, going to two 50a outlets. Then you would have 2, 6 gauge feeds to your control panel.

In any case, you would likely want 4, 25a breakers in the control panel, so you could step down to 10 gauge wire inside to the elements.

I hope this helps. BTW, nice name. Change the third letter and you have my surname.

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

I would vote for 2 50a supplies as well. If you coudl find the 100a GFCI breaker, or even a 100a GFCI load cell or any type of configuration that would give you 100a GFCI protection, that'd be my first vote. I would much rather have 1 supply over 2, and 2 supplies over 4. I think it'd look cleaner, and would be easier to wire, plus less headache with any sort of main power switch. Think - if you had 4 supplies into your control panel and you have a main on/off switch and contactor like most run, you'd either need an 8 pole contactor, or four 2 pole contactors. I don't know if the first one exists, and the second is going to take up a LOT of room. Breaking it down to two supplies cuts that in half and would be much easier to manage.

Can I ask why you're going with 4 elements? Do you plan to do batches in excess of a bbl? What I'm getting at - are you going for a 100a panel and brewery just because you can, or will it actually provide a real benefit?