Electric Brewing Setup - electrical questions

[lowgman]

I just moved into my new place and setup a NEMA 30R three prong receptacle (mainly for my welder - but I would like to tap into that for my soon to be - electric brewery setup)

Do I need a GFCI outlet for the heating elements for the brewery setup? I plan to use a HERMS coil setup with some sort of PID controller for the heating element and a simple temp controller on another electric element for the boil.

Should I upgrade the receptacle to a FOUR PRONG with a neutral for powering the setup? Is there any need for 120v on a simple setup like this?

I found the following manual boil controller (http://www.stilldragon.com/diy-controller.html), but does anyone have a recommendation for a simple PID controller? I just want to have control over the HERMS heating coil.

Thanks!

 

[jhobson]

*Not an electrician*

You don't need a GFCI outlet/receptacle. I'd swap out your 30 amp breaker for a 30 amp GFCI breaker. I'm not sure they make GFCI receptacles rated at 30 amp 240V. The big thing here is to ensure that somewhere upstream of your brewery equipment you add GFCI protection so that the brewery is protected downstream.

I'd swap out for a four prong outlet (assuming you want 120V in your panel). They make adapters that you can plug into the four prong so that your existing three prong plug will work without modification. You can find these on Amazon and elsewhere.

You will probably want the neutral for 120V to power your pumps. How are you going to move wort through the HERMs coil?

After building a simple SSVR box and then something more complex for a RIMs element, I'd recommend building something more complicated than what you think you'll need (i.e. add in one or two 120V receptacles for pumps). The time difference for me to build either unit was not that much different. If you still want to go the "simple" route you could follow the simple SSVR build by pogden and replace the SSVR with a traditional SSR and PID to control the temp.

 

[LandoLincoln]

You can replace your 30a receptacle with a "spa panel" which has a GFCI breaker built into it. And from that sub-panel you could add an outlet. Strangely enough, a spa panel is way cheaper than just a GFCI breaker. No one really knows why this is.

This is a good thread to read about doing this kind of stuff.

 

[lowgman]

Awesome, this is good information.

It sounds like GFCI is something that I need... Not sure how it will affect my welding use of that same outlet.

The spa panel might be out of the question, I only got the approval to put in a 240v receptacle. I don't think I can do more wiring in the garage now.

Is it generally a really bad idea to not have any GFCI components in the setup?

I do plan on a couple march pumps that I was going to power with a separate outlet, but you may have changed my mind.

It would be nice to have the control box control 2 pumps with simple on/off switches, the RIMS element and the boil element. I just don't need the automation stuff on some of those fancy panels I've been looking at online.

 

[lowgman]

I just had an idea, not sure if this is possible or totally breaking all sorts of electrical code/rules/blah...

Can I mount the spa panel on my brewing rig, and feed the SPA panel with (sufficiently sized) electrical cable from the four prong panel? Or is it a very bad idea to feed the spa panel with a plug and receptacle?

 

[neild5]

You need a GFCI in the circuit. Add the 4th wire and put the spa panel on your brew rig since it might cause issues with the welder. At some point you are going to need/want a 120v outlet on the brew rig.

Neil

 

[grathan]

I just hooked into the welding outlet. It doesn't have a neutral, which means I probably won't be running any 110v stuff. There are other gfci receptacles nearby for that though. Welds fine with the gfci 50a breaker.

You could probably find a PID with boil control built into it. IE: run it in manual when you are powering the boil and then use the program for the herms coil heat.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Awesome, this is good information.

It sounds like GFCI is something that I need... Not sure how it will affect my welding use of that same outlet.

The spa panel might be out of the question, I only got the approval to put in a 240v receptacle. I don't think I can do more wiring in the garage now.

Is it generally a really bad idea to not have any GFCI components in the setup?

I do plan on a couple march pumps that I was going to power with a separate outlet, but you may have changed my mind.

It would be nice to have the control box control 2 pumps with simple on/off switches, the RIMS element and the boil element. I just don't need the automation stuff on some of those fancy panels I've been looking at online.

Yeah, when you're working with electricity and water in close proximity to each other, GFCI is a must. A regular circuit breaker won't save your life if something ever goes wrong.

I can't really comment on how a welder would react to being connected to a GFCI-controlled outlet. I have a feeling that it would give the GFCI a lot of false readings and would trip the GFCI a lot. I could be totally wrong and it might be fine.

You could run an appropriately-sized (amperage-wise) extension cord from the 30a outlet to the GFCI spa panel and from there go from the spa panel to the rest of the brew rig. But there are also GFCI-protected cords that you could buy instead. Normally they're used for large copiers. So you could do some Googling on those.

 

[lowgman]

Pardon my ignorance, a GFCI protected cord has the protection built into the cord? It knows to trip when it sense a leakage of current?

 

[floormatg]

Yes, there is a device attached to the male end of the cord with a test/reset button, just like a regular GFCI. They are the simplest as there is no modification to the house wiring or hooking up a spa pack, they are just plug and play.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Pardon my ignorance, a GFCI protected cord has the protection built into the cord? It knows to trip when it sense a leakage of current?

Yes. Something like this:

(source)

 

[lowgman]

Interesting... GFCI cable, $240.

Spa panel with GFCI - $50...

Ugh.

Yes. Something like this:

(source)

 

[LandoLincoln]

You can find them cheaper than that. Ebay is a good place to look.