Cheap method for throttling and electric element
- Thread starter gregdech
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jkarp
Well-Known Member
The numbers have nothing to do with size - they're just the identifiers Lonnie gave his fine Brutus creations. Here's his description of the CRDFM Brutus 20. I simply scaled it down and use gravity for the MLT to HLT/kettle part of the loop. That way, only a single pump and heat source is required.
garretto
Well-Known Member
jkarp, so you hardly ever get more that a 5 gallon pre-boil volumes? How long does it usually take get a boil goin with your element? Thanks for the video by the way, I'm pretty excited to do this
jkarp
Well-Known Member
Never more than 5 gal. My boil-off rate is 1g/hr so even at a 90 minute boil, I've got 3 1/2 gal going into the fermenter. It takes 20 or so minutes to get to a hard boil from sparge temps. Takes about an hour to bring 5 gal of 50F water to a boil.
conpewter
Well-Known Member
This gave me an interesting idea. Get several 8 gallon HDPE buckets (like the ones for wine in the homebrew shop) and put two elements in them that get you ~3000 watts. Then you can use the bucket to boil in, when you are done you can unplug it, put the lid on it, then tip it over and let it cool. Then after it is cool just pitch the yeast in it, crack the seal of the lid slightly to allow Co2 to escape.
That's what the Brits do. They make fermenter buckets into boil kettles. They buy cheap plastic kettles, cut out the elements, fit them to the buckets and brew away. They do something to the element though to stop it cutting off. They reach boil with two elements going then turn one off, leaving only one on to maintain the boil.
They never report scorched wort.
When I came across that I thought it was the budget answer to my brewing blues. Instead of 200 dollars on a stockpot I'd be paying 20 dollars for a bucket and about the same for two kettles.
The problem is that their kettle elements are 2.2KW and ours are 1.5KW. I thought I'd put an extra kettle element in but then there's the whole voltage amp ohm problem. I'm illiterate when it comes to electrical stuff, and I don't want to fry myself and send the house up in flames.
I didn't ever read that that they used this machine as a combined boiler/fermenter.
Phil
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