50 gallon kettle - options?

[PantsOffBrewing]

Tuesday night as I put the last two fittings on my eHerms keggle system I got a text from a brew buddy. He's moving out of state and wants to know if I'll take his 50 gallon kettle.

He heated this thing with two SQ14 burners. I only have one and having to go back to propane for big batches isn't ideal, but neither is rewiring for a 50amp system and adding two 5500w elements.

I'm thinking most of my batches will still be 10 gallon, with occasional 25 gallon batches with friends or for parties.

I'm hoping to do 25 gallon batches with this and am considering options: should I just stick with the one SQ14? buy a second SQ14? would a 6000w element be enough? how long would that take to boil from 160? Could I do a hybrid and have a 6k element and SQ14 firing underneath?

Any ideas or thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[LandoLincoln]

According to my spreadsheet, it would take about 50 minutes to go from 152° to boiling with a single 5500w heater with an expected 95% efficiency for a 30-gallon pre-boil wort. With a pot that wide and a deadspace that big, I'm thinking you'll probably lose at least 5 gallons to evaporation and trub.

I'm thinking you might not be able to do 10 gallon batches with that thing just using electric, since the heating element may not be fully submerged with only 12 gallons or so in the pot. That's a BIG pot, man!

To get 32 gallons of water from room temp to 165° with a single 5500w heater and a 95% efficiency, it would take you about 90 minutes.

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

Hi LoL, Thanks for the reply!

I'm going to keep my keggle BK for 10 gallon batches, using the new 50 gallon pot only for big batches.

Sounds like electric might be possible with slightly longer wait times, which is why I was thinking of going up to a 6000w... hopefully 10% faster, and still under the 30amp limit of my panel.

Here is the 6000w element that i saw: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PSB3B2/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

I also have a hot water faucet outside so strike water starts at 120 so that shouldn't be too much of a problem, mostly just worried about boiling.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Taking 32g of water from 120° to 165° with a 6000w element would take about 37 minutes.

Taking 30g of water from 152° to boiling with a 6000w element would take about 46 minutes.

Here's a link to the spreadsheet.

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

Great spreadsheet! Saved.

Those seem like acceptable times.

 

[rchrdpdl]

Keep in mind that it might be more due to heat loss to the atmosphere (through the kettle wall and off the surface of the liquid).

Would an element that size be able to actually boil that much water though? Boiling is different and takes more energy than just getting it to boiling temperature. You might be losing more energy to the atmosphere at that temperature than you're putting back in with the element, meaning that you never boil.

I use a 2.2kw element and it boils 35 litres (a bit less than 10 gallons) gently in my keggle, which is narrower than this massive kettle probably is (so less surface area of exposed liquid).

I'd wait to hear from other big batch electric brewers to confirm real world workability with an element that size.

As far as a hybrid, it could work but you need to make sure the element is protected. A lot of heat from a gas burner goes up the side of the kettle, so your seals, external housing and cord are a big, big chance to melt. If you can manage that issue, hybrid would work.

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

another option would be to add a second 120v element on a different circuit. That wouldn't be as elegant a solution, but I could plug in a 1500w kicker just on a switch and it would bring the total up to 7500w.

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

I'm a bit nervous of hybrid as well, i would need to build some sort of protection shield. I'm a fan of KISS, so the less things that can go wrong the better.

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

After thinking about it last night, hybrid is out, going either electric or staying with propane, would much prefer electric though.

Does anyone have real world experience using something like this, or boiling 25-30 gallons with one element?




Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[LandoLincoln]

You could rig up a temporary heatstick to see how well a single 6000w element would do.

Just by using math, you could figure out the efficiency of this pot, but I do not know what that equation looks like.

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

That's the MLT next to it. It has a bazooka screen in it that I'm also a bit skeptical of. I fly sparge and only have experience with a false bottom, but I'll give it a shot and see how it goes.

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

Rigging up a heatstick would work and probably worth it before I drill a hole, but its also a $100 experiment after cords, plugs, element, etc. are purchased... i would be great to have some reassurance from someone who's tried to boil "underpowered"

Speaking of Math, does this make any sense:

I normally boil 13 gallons at 70% of 5500W, so 3850W, using that same ratio i would need 9500W for 32 gallons and 8000W for 27 gallons. So if I did the 6000W element and added a 2000W 120v element on a seperate 20amp circut it would be the same as it is now, just a bit longer to boil.

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

According to Kal people brew 1bbl batches with just his 30a 5500W system and it just takes longer.

I'm going to give it a shot with propane this weekend and see how it goes, as I know the relationship of my old burner to my new electric system. If it goes well then my current plan is to add one 5500W or 6000W element (anyone have any thoughts on the 80% rule and 6000W elements?!) and see how it goes, if need be I can add a 1500W booster, getting me to ~7000W total but I'd rather not.

 

[LandoLincoln]

According to Kal people brew 1bbl batches with just his 30a 5500W system and it just takes longer.

I'm going to give it a shot with propane this weekend and see how it goes, as I know the relationship of my old burner to my new electric system. If it goes well then my current plan is to add one 5500W or 6000W element (anyone have any thoughts on the 80% rule and 6000W elements?!) and see how it goes, if need be I can add a 1500W booster, getting me to ~7000W total but I'd rather not.

I have a 50a control panel that runs 2 5500w elements and 2 March pumps along with 2 PIDS and 2 temp displays all at the same time and nothing bad has happened yet (knock on wood). No tripped breakers either. I'm definitely running outside of that 80% rule.

 

[jeffmeh]

80% rule applies to continuous loads of 3 hours afaik. An ssr cycling on and off doesn't qualify as a continuous load.

 

[Weezy]

Are you willing to rent that short person out to clean out kettles???

 

[PantsOffBrewing]

I don't think the SSR will be cycling at all until boil, and even then I imagine it would run at 100%. Assume 60 minute sparge, 60 minute boil, and 46 minutes to get to boil according to Lincoln, that means I'm pretty damn close to 3 hours of max load.

Now, the pumps will only be running during the sparge so after an hour it will fall to just the 6000W which would be about 80%, only one way to know for sure.