Opinions on which element in HLT and BK

[cank]

I have two heating elements, one is a 4500w fold back from Home Depot and the other is a Camco ULWD 5500 from Amazon.
I will use a HERMs set up with a cooler for the mash tun, running a single pump with a 13.5 Gal keg for the HLT and a 15 Gal keg for the BK.

What would the best configuration be with my elements? I. E. would there be any advantage of having the 5500w in the BK vs the HLT?

 

[ChuckO]

Advantage of 5500w element in boil - Reduction in time from 17 to 14 minutes to boil 12 gallons from mash out.
Disadvantage - Increase in time to get strike water from 60 deg. to 180 deg. in HLT from 44 to 53 minutes with 4500 watt element.

I would put the 5500w element in the HLT to get strike up to temperature faster and to allow more ability to dump in heat for step mashing or mash out. The 4500w element will boil just fine, you don't need the increased power at that step.

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

I put my 5500 in the HLT because that's where you're taking water from 55-60*F up to 150-160*F, and if it's a big HERMS with a big coil you'll have quite a bit of water to heat. My BK has a 4500w because when I sparge I'm getting wort into the BK between 160-170*F, and it's not much effort to get that up to boiling.

 

[cank]

Thanks guys. I didn't have them that way but that's what I was kinda thinking. I just finished converting my 15 gal keg and automatically put the new element in there when I switched the smaller keg from my initial BK over to its new home as an HLT.

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

There's a spreadsheet that I've linked to a few times but don't have on me right now. That's your best bet. It takes into account volume, starting temperature, target temperature, wattage, and a few other things. If your HLT volume is significantly smaller than your BK volume (for example, if you're only running 3 gallons of water in your HLT and are boiling 11 gallons in your BK) then it may make sense to go with the 5500w in the BK. The only way to verify is to do the math, which is what the spreadsheet does for you. I'll see if I can find it, but a search through HBT should pull something up for you.