dlaramie08
Well-Known Member
Built two of these with 1500 watt 120v elements. Will be testing for water proofness tonight. Hopefully will brew with them tomorrow night. Drew inspiration from the various online sources as far as directions go.
I use a 1500W stick with my stove, works great.Awesome. I just built a 1500W heat stick yesterday and I'm hoping to brew with it tomorrow with my gas stove. I might have to look into building a second one before my next brew day.
Looks good. Where did you fasten the ground wire?
The element I purchased did not have a ground connection. I ran the ground wire back up to above the waterline neare the end of the metal waste pipe, drilled the pipe for a machine screw and nut, crimped on a 2-prong connector, and clamped it tight. Smeared silicone around the head of the nut to seal it.
Those things are great. I reduced the time-to-boil from 1 hour to 20 minutes, and the 1.5kW heat stick can keep a vigorous boil by itself. The 32L pot is insulated with 2 layers of Reflectix, 1 layer on the lid.
A 1500W element on 120V is perfect for a 15A circuit. Circuits are designed to run continuously at 80% of max, intermittently up to 15A, and 12.5A is 83.33% of 15A.
dlaramie08 said:1500 watt is max on 15 amp.
What are you doing to ground the kettle?
I would be concerned about an element shorted to the outer sheath and energizing the kettle or surrounding metal stands.
Being un-grounded, it might not have a reliable return path to trip the breaker or GFCI...
mind elaborating where you got the 90* chrome pipe? i see the p-trap kit for 25$ at HD, looks similar but thought maybe you found it outside of a kit.
mind elaborating where you got the 90* chrome pipe? i see the p-trap kit for 25$ at HD, looks similar but thought maybe you found it outside of a kit.
L sticks are more forgiving of shallow half batches.
Strecker25 said:mind elaborating where you got the 90* chrome pipe? i see the p-trap kit for 25$ at HD, looks similar but thought maybe you found it outside of a kit.
heckels said:Technically, 1800W if you're running at 120V. But with variations between 110V and 120V, 1500-1600 is about the safe max.
In case anyone is wondering about doing the same thing, it does take both going to keep a good rolling boil on a full boil 5 gallon batch (7 gallons). It was a little slower than propane getting from mash out temps up to boil, but it was only about another 10 minutes.
Strecker25 said:how long for the two 1500w sticks to a 7 gallon boil? did you have to unplug one once it got going? im really itching to use my new inside brew space and ditch propane as winter looms, but am not ready to do a full herms.
No need to ground the kettle because the fluid will always be in contact with the metal pipe and then trip the gfci since the ground wire is touching the metal pipe. If the fluid is not in contact with the metal pipe then the element is running dry and I have bigger problems than the kettle being energized.
And is a jumper to the kettle to the metal part of the heatstick sufficient?
How will grounding the kettle to the heat stick help if you're imagining a situation where the gfci fails?
Ok, while I do agree with the above, i find it interesting that my UL listed electric turkey fryer is not GFI protected ?
Do they assume the user provides this protection?
Yeah, That's how I would do it.
Add a screw and locknut to the top of the kettle where you can attach a 14 gauge wire with some ring terminals crimped to it.
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