Recent content by Lennie

FYI if you buy hominy grits, the lye treatment that makes hominy has pre-gelatinized the starch. That's why a kernel of hominy is so much bigger than a kernel of corn. So no need to cereal mash.

Got my electric brewery wired with the help of my friend. Boiled my first 5gal of water as a test, and we will brew a 10gal trial batch of stout today. I didn't have the SCR installed just yet, it appears that I can just heat and boil at full power without wasting much electricity.

Just throw out a data point, I pitched a generous amount of 1 year old yeast cake onto an ESB several days ago. It took 48hrs to start but is fermenting nicely now and smells great. I hadn't realized I didn't have a British ale yeast on hand when I brewed, and since I'm not short of beer I...

Sanitary just has to be very smooth so there are no crevices for gunk to stick in and harbor bacteria. Not an issue on a brew kettle. That is a good backup plan if the soldering doesn't work. Good luck.

Glad to hear this SCR has a chance of working. I'll break most of the wire holes out of the gang box so it will be reasonably well ventilated.

Answering my own questions. Read that using a device designed for 50Hz unit at 60Hz means higher current, higher temp and greater chance of failure. Also you get 17% less power out if I understand it correctly, although with an SCR I don't know if that applies.

I sent the seller a question regarding this SCR. I asked if it was designed for 50Hz or 60 Hz. The answer came back 50Hz. There was no mention of this is the item description, but I read in another thread that it might be the case. I suppose this means I can look forward to this item failing...

Thanks, I will just be controlling the one element with this thing. And I did buy DPST 30amp switch so I won't be fatiguing the spa panel breaker. Also picked up a plastic single gang outlet box for the switch and a triple gang outlet for the SCR. Snagged 20' of 10/3 power cord and a set of...

I'm looking at threads on wiring up SCRs and they seem to indicate the two hots go in to the SCR and two outputs go out to the element, like I drew in my schematic. I'm not done researching that yet though. My rudimentary understanding of 240V is that one of the two hots acts as the neutral...

OK I will put a DPST switch in the loop to be able to de-energize, although the 50amp spa panel gfci breaker would work for that right? I only surmised that the wiring went this way because the SCR has two lugs for incoming power, and two for outgoing. I suppose this is for controlling two...

By the way, this is the SCR I bought. Two lugs for incoming power, two for outgoing. I can only assume it is meant to be wired with the two hots for 240V in and two wires out. I suppose this means it is not grounded either. I'm also trying to envision a way to enclose this thing since the...

Here's a drawing of the schematic I'm thinking of. It shows the main panel, four wire to the spa panel, then three wire to the element with the SCR inline on the two hots. I have to research how a GFCI works to make sure I am protected with this wiring setup.

Thanks for the info. I installed 10/3 Romex from the main to the spa panel so I have a neutral and a ground running into the box. I thought the additional gfci 50amp breaker in the spa panel would be OK to use as a switch since it isn't acting as a breaker other than being the GFCI. I did...

I did just reread the entire sticky primer and have a better idea of what to do. I still don't understand why a 10/3 power cord doesn't have three wires and a fourth ground wire. Is this because the neutral isn't used in an element, so you have two hots and a ground? The "PJ" wiring diagram...

I have looked through the many spa panel threads and am still not exactly clear on how to wire my setup. I have a 30amp breaker in the main panel, 10/3 with ground ruin to the garage where I brew, a 60amp breaker in a spa panel that will power a single 5500W element in an enclosure. I also...