Electric brew kettles

[jrb1260]

I want to go to a electric brew kettle but I don’t know what the best one would be. I would like to do AG.
I really like the grainfather but I don’t like the price. I want the mash and brew part to be simple. I’m tired of pouring my wart into the fermenter. I want to either pump it or gravity feed it. I also want simple cleaning. So a kettle with the element in the water is not the way I want to go. I only found a few.
I would just like a little input.

 

[brewswithshoes]

Check out the brew boss. i'm not sure what you mean by electric without the element in the water? induction brewing?

I personally wanted to go electric to bring my brewing indoors (live in Florida and it's wicked hot to brew outside 10 months out of the year) I did read a little on induction burners/plates, but from what i recall hitting and holding temps was not as precise as what i was looking for.

Quite honestly, the element in the kettle isn't a real issue. Let's you control the temps with much more precision, and cleanup of it doesn't take long at all. Well, i say that in my case with the brew boss as it's a simple tri-clover connection to remove and clean post brew.

 

[jrb1260]

II meant like the grainfather. The element is under the pot. So no need to clean the element because it’s always dry. Also easier to mash sparge and boil with a temperature control.

 

[319brewer]

You could also look at a kettle with a tri-clover element, the element is easily removable and clean up is a breeze. Spike brewing will customize a kettle for you and ebrewsupply sells elements purpose built for a tri-clover.

 

[BarleyPopBrewer]

BIAB using induction?

 

[Bobby_M]

The grainfather, robobrew, and mash and boil all have the same kind of coffee urn element. Some people think they have enough power but I find them to be dog slow at temp ramps. I demoed the mash and boil today and it was a 5 hour brew day and I didn't even clean it yet.

Having a hidden element is not what I'd call a keystone feature because I think you over estimate the difficulty in cleaning other kinds of elements.

 

[cod3ck]

The grainfather, robobrew, and mash and boil all have the same kind of coffee urn element. Some people think they have enough power but I find them to be dog slow at temp ramps. I demoed the mash and boil today and it was a 5 hour brew day and I didn't even clean it yet.

Having a hidden element is not what I'd call a keystone feature because I think you over estimate the difficulty in cleaning other kinds of elements.

+1 on this

In fact, I’d highly recommend the element route based on ROI of cost vs performance. Some induction setups may do decent as well, but from what I’ve seen, you’re still going “big” either way...

Only follow up would be get a 2” triclamp connecting element so you can pull it out for super easy cleaning. Not a must (I don’t have it), but the setup is slick!

 

[augiedoggy]

I want to go to a electric brew kettle but I don’t know what the best one would be. I would like to do AG.
I really like the grainfather but I don’t like the price. I want the mash and brew part to be simple. I’m tired of pouring my wart into the fermenter. I want to either pump it or gravity feed it. I also want simple cleaning. So a kettle with the element in the water is not the way I want to go. I only found a few.
I would just like a little input.

if you use the right element, cleaning it takes all of a couple minutes to wipe it off after brewing... Stories of scorching and hard buildup are for the guys still using HWD elements these days..I use a tri clamp element like mentioned... half the time I dont even bother to remove it but rather just wipe it down while its still mounted in the kettle.

 

[The_Bishop]

Ease of cleaning depends on the sharpness of the operator!

For example, I decided to try a step mash of a 25% rye (1/2 flaked, 1/2 malt) in my biab system. Started with a 125 degree protein rest, then stepped up to 145, then 160, then finally mashout. Everything looked just fine at this point. This is in my BIAB system. ULWD tri-clamp element.

During the boil, however... The wort started looking like an amber, which it shouldn't really as it was all pilsner and rye. On draining the kettle I found the element covered in burned on protein deposits. Doh. Tasted the wort, got a burned bread flavor and ash. That got dumped, then the cleaning of the element commenced. An overnight soak in easy-off oven cleaner didn't even put a dent in it. A very strong brewery-grade hot caustic cleaning did nothing. Neither did a hot acid cleaning.

Only think that got it off was a carefully controlled dry-fire in short bursts, followed up by a bunch of tedious scrubbing with 800/1000 grit wet or dry sandpaper to get the last of the black off. A final scrub with BKF returned it to it's previous shiny state.

I won't be doing that again!

To be fair, I've brewed dozens of times with this setup and never had this result before. 99% of the time, it's like Augie says - A quick wipedown gets it all off. I attribute it to the high amount of flaked rye and the protein rest.

 

[augiedoggy]

I have yet to make a rye beer (Now im a bit afraid too)... I wonder if the biab setup restricted movement around the element and help cause this though?

 

[The_Bishop]

I don't know about the restricted flow; I have an open sided basket and I have my loc-line return set to always keep the mash stirred up and in motion as opposed to trying to establish a 'grain bed'. Therefore I'm always recirculating 100% wide open. I've done a variation of this beer as a single infusion w/ mashout before and had no issues, I think the main issue was the protein rest and the accompanying temperature ramp-up. At 125f, the grain isn't at it's gelatinization temperature yet, so maybe some of the flour from the grist ended up on the element as well.

 

[augiedoggy]

I don't know about the restricted flow; I have an open sided basket and I have my loc-line return set to always keep the mash stirred up and in motion as opposed to trying to establish a 'grain bed'. Therefore I'm always recirculating 100% wide open. I've done a variation of this beer as a single infusion w/ mashout before and had no issues, I think the main issue was the protein rest and the accompanying temperature ramp-up. At 125f, the grain isn't at it's gelatinization temperature yet, so maybe some of the flour from the grist ended up on the element as well.

I suspect your right about the protien rest.

I know that if you are running the element and then turn it off for even a few minutes, some of the suspended proteins then settle on the element and if you fire the element back up at that point without stirring first Those proteins can easily burn to the surface of the element. It not as common with ULWD elements as it was with the old lwd ones but it can still happen and often only does on heavy/ high gravity beers like barley wines and such but rye and wheat will do it too.

this was a common issue with the earlier brew boss systems and why they changed element styles to the ULWD ones... I still see reports of scorching with ULWD elements when used under baskets and bags from time to time here so that has to be causing at least a more likely environment for it to occur in some cases.

 

[cegan09]

I'm going to echo what most say, which is that cleaning elements is not a problem for 95% of us. I've never needed to do more than just wipe it over with something, even with high gravity (10+% ABV) brews. I'm sure there's always a corner case that can be found, but in general it's not a problem. Use a tri-clamp attached element, have a couple tri-clamp block off plates and then you can pull the element, reseal the kettle, and clean everything with ease.

Putting the heating element in the liquid makes it more efficient. You're not trying to move heat through the kettle before heating liquid.

 

[augiedoggy]

II meant like the grainfather. The element is under the pot. So no need to clean the element because it’s always dry. Also easier to mash sparge and boil with a temperature control.

From rereading your initial post it sounds like something like the picobrew that you turn on and walk away might be more what your looking for..