Electric burners - Any builders out there?

[CidahMastah]

Then my uber-thorough wife told me that she found a clause in our homeowner's insurance policy that stated that any damage to the house caused by electrical work that was performed by someone without an electrician's license would not be covered. Period. So, in the event that something terrible happened and my house burned down... if it was deemed to have been caused by the breaker and 2 feet of wiring that I had installed, then I would be SOL and sitting on top of 25 years of mortgage for a house that no longer existed.

er I mean... I could totally install it myself dude... I just don't want to mess with my insurance on my house.... ha!

I over plan the heck out of everything, sometimes the best knowledge is knowing what you don't know! I know I could learn it, but I am happy wiring tiny light bulbs in series and parallel from a AA battery. Or changing out the occasional wall plug or light switch (with the breaker off)

Thanks for that link!

I know some old timer electricians who still test for hots with their fingers. One ******* likes to scare new guys by taking a screwdriver and causing an arc on wall socket wires....

 

[CidahMastah]

See heat sticks scare the sh!t out of me too. Problem is, I would have to install two elements. Also, right now my buddy bought a blichman for our "shared" mashtun. I have been rocking the BIAB so far. I am not sure he will be up for cutting into his new shiny toy. That also means I would need to buys 4 elements, versus making two heat sticks. But I still think the heat sticks are crazy.

Has anyone straight up welded the element onto the piping? and welded piping up and out of the kettle to make the seal versus jb weld and silicon? My buddy is a welder

 

[Walker]

See heat sticks scare the sh!t out of me too. Problem is, I would have to install two elements. Also, right now my buddy bought a blichman for our "shared" mashtun. I have been rocking the BIAB so far. I am not sure he will be up for cutting into his new shiny toy. That also means I would need to buys 4 elements, versus making two heat sticks. But I still think the heat sticks are crazy.

I'm not following you. Why do you need 2 elements? I thought we were talking about a single 3000W element here.

Also, you do NOT want to put an element directly into your MLT, so forget about cutting up the blichman.

I am not clear on what you are trying to build.

 

[CidahMastah]

Ah! - I only saw 1500 and 2000 watt and 5500 elements at HD yesterday. I must have overlooked the 3K watt one. I thought you meant to use two 1500watts for a total of 3K.

By putting the element into the mash tun, I had thought about running it off a PID to maintain mash temps. I would be installing a recirculating pump to even out temp changes. Am I missing something here?

If I understand you, you were only talking about using the 3K element for wort boiling. Is there a good way to automate a mash tun's temp with an electric element? I thought that was the purpose of the PID controller and an installed element + circulating pump.

So to sum it up, my intent was (for hands off approach and no holes to the kettles)
1. build a heat stick and hook it up to a PID controller. Use that to control mashtemps with the help of a recirculating pump
2. use the same heat stick to then boil my wort after the mash is done (with the help of the PID controller)

 

[Walker]

Ah! - I only saw 1500 and 2000 watt and 5500 elements at HD yesterday. I must have overlooked the 3K watt one. I thought you meant to use two 1500watts for a total of 3K.

I don't think 3000W/240V is a common size, so you may not find them at lowe's or home depot, but they are readily available online for less than $10.

By putting the element into the mash tun, I had thought about running it off a PID to maintain mash temps. I would be installing a recirculating pump to even out temp changes. Am I missing something here?

If I understand you, you were only talking about using the 3K element for wort boiling. Is there a good way to automate a mash tun's temp with an electric element? I thought that was the purpose of the PID controller and an installed element + circulating pump.

If you put the element directly into your mash, you will most likely scorch the grain and have some crappy tasting beer. To maintain mash temps, you should to look into HERMS or RIMS systems. In those systems, you pump the wort out of the MLT, heat it up (just liquid, no grain), and then return the wort to the MLT. The element is never in contact with the grain.

The typical RIMS set up uses a stainless steel tube with a heater element in one end and a temp probe in the other and T's to bring wort in and out. You pump the worth through that tube and the PID monitors the temp of it as it exits the tube, and will bump the heater element when it needs to in order to maintain your set temp.

The typical HERMS set-up is a copper or stainless coil sitting in hot water. You pump wort from the MLT through that coil. The PID monitors either (a) the temp of the hot water or (b) the temp of the wort that is exiting the coil and boost the heat of the water when it needs to.

So to sum it up, my intent was (for hands off approach and no holes to the kettles)
1. build a heat stick and hook it up to a PID controller. Use that to control mashtemps with the help of a recirculating pump
2. use the same heat stick to then boil my wort after the mash is done (with the help of the PID controller)

If you really want to avoid cutting holes in kettles, and you want to keep your costs as low as possible, then build a heat stick and go with HERMS.

You can mount the temp probe in a little chamber at the output of your copper coil. Sit that in a kettle full of water and put the heat stick in there, too. Pump wort through the coil and let the PID turn the heat stick off and on as necessary to maintain the temp of the wort that is coming out of the coil and back to the MLT.

When you are done mashing, pump the wort to another empty kettle and move the heat stick into that kettle. You're going to boil in there.

The hot water that you had in the first kettle is your sparge water. Pump it into the MLT for a batch sparge.

Pump the MLT contents to the boil kettle again to complete the sparge.

Flip the PID into manual mode and run it at 100% power until the kettle starts to boil. If necessary, dial the power down from 100% if your boil is too strong. But, with 3000W and 7 or so gallons of wort, you'll probably be find just running at 100%.

SO.. one heat stick, one PID, one probe mounted to your movable coil, and no keg cutting and you have fully electric HERMS.

 

[bruin_ale]

Then my uber-thorough wife told me that she found a clause in our homeowner's insurance policy that stated that any damage to the house caused by electrical work that was performed by someone without an electrician's license would not be covered. Period. So, in the event that something terrible happened and my house burned down... if it was deemed to have been caused by the breaker and 2 feet of wiring that I had installed, then I would be SOL and sitting on top of 25 years of mortgage for a house that no longer existed.

That was enough for me to cough up $100 to have a licensed electrician come spent 30 minutes in my garage.

Well, I guess it's a good thing I was wiring it up in a detached garage! If anything were to go wrong I'd just be out one detached garage.
Seriously though, I just wired my 240V plug the other day.. It was really simple, the hardest part was working with 8 AWG cable (my circuit is 40A).

That said, there's never any harm in bringing a pro in.

 

[Walker]

BTW: you can still do this with a single element installed in a single kettle. That would be lower cost over all and you only have to cut a hole in one kettle.

This is what I do.

Install heater in a kettle. Put copper coil in it. Mash, circulating through that coil and monitoring temp as the wort comes out of the coil. PID boost the heat of that installed element when necessary.

When mash is done, pump the hot water to another empty kettle to hold it temporarily and take the coil out of the kettle.

Pump mash tun contents to the electric kettle.

Pump hot water from that temporary holding tank into mash tun for sparge.

Pump mash tun contents to electric kettle to complete sparge.

Flip PID into manual mode and boil in that electric kettle.

 

[CidahMastah]

OK cool - that makes sense that the coil in contact with grain could cause issues. Thanks for the explanation.

And just to be clear on this, again, not good with electric. That 3000W/240V, would I need to hook that up in a special way? As I said i have that double pole 15 amp breaker, but it on a circuit with all 120 outlets. Your saying that the double pole 15 amp breaker won't trip since 240 is available? Won't the outlets bottleneck?

I like the idea (and frugality) of the fully electric herms. I need to research the designs of that a bit more, but I believe that is what I will be moving towards.

I think for now I might settle on setting up for just the boiling, then develop the rest as I have the cash. To make the boiling apparatus all I would need would be that PID you sent earlier (no probe because I would run it in manual for boiling) and the material for building a heat stick right?

 

[CidahMastah]

Install heater in a kettle. Put copper coil in it. Mash, circulating through that coil and monitoring temp as the wort comes out of the coil. PID boost the heat of that installed element when necessary.

You wouldn't happen to have a picture of this set up would you? I can't visualize how the element interacts with the mash water/wort. Is the element under a false bottom or something?

 

[Walker]

And just to be clear on this, again, not good with electric. That 3000W/240V, would I need to hook that up in a special way? As I said i have that double pole 15 amp breaker, but it on a circuit with all 120 outlets. Your saying that the double pole 15 amp breaker won't trip since 240 is available? Won't the outlets bottleneck?

Hmmmmm... that's a little strange, but it sounds like they fed 240V into the panel and through the double-pole breaker, but then forked the hots off to make 120V circuits.

Can you snap a pic of this breaker?

I thought you already had a 240v outlet connected to this breaker that you were going to use.

I like the idea (and frugality) of the fully electric herms. I need to research the designs of that a bit more, but I believe that is what I will be moving towards.

I think for now I might settle on setting up for just the boiling, then develop the rest as I have the cash. To make the boiling apparatus all I would need would be that PID you sent earlier (no probe because I would run it in manual for boiling) and the material for building a heat stick right?

Well... if you want to just start out with an electric boil kettle, then you can REALLY save yourself some money. You will really not need a PID for that or anything. 3000W is going to be a good size for heating up water and boiling 5 gallon batches with no kind of control. You literally could just run the 3000W element at full strength and you'd be good.

You wouldn't happen to have a picture of this set up would you? I can't visualize how the element interacts with the mash water/wort. Is the element under a false bottom or something?

I can go take a pic right now. Give me a few minutes.

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

BTW: you can still do this with a single element installed in a single kettle. That would be lower cost over all and you only have to cut a hole in one kettle.

This is what I do.

Install heater in a kettle. Put copper coil in it. Mash, circulating through that coil and monitoring temp as the wort comes out of the coil. PID boost the heat of that installed element when necessary.

When mash is done, pump the hot water to another empty kettle to hold it temporarily and take the coil out of the kettle.

Pump mash tun contents to the electric kettle.

Pump hot water from that temporary holding tank into mash tun for sparge.

Pump mash tun contents to electric kettle to complete sparge.

Flip PID into manual mode and boil in that electric kettle.

Daaaang. That's a lot of work. I don't like work, I would rather build up my brewery to make the brew day more fun.

 

[Walker]

Daaaang. That's a lot of work. I don't like work, I would rather build up my brewery to make the brew day more fun.

How is that a lot of work? Compared to a HERMS that had a dedicated electric HLT, all I am doing is moving the coil one time (5 seconds of 'work') and doing an extra pumping step to move hot water from electric kettle to a temporary holding tank (2 minutes of 'work' that the pump does for me).

The alternative is to add another heater element, mounting hardware for the element in the kettle, power cord for the element, receptacle for the element inside the panel and then a selector switch to flip back and forth between the elements.

That adds up to quite a bit of money right there, and all I save is a lifting and setting down of the coil, a couple valve twists, and the flick of a switch.

edit; Oh, and I have other reasons for not putting an element in that temporary hot water tank. it's my brew kettle when I want to brew at a friend's house. I just pull it off the HERMS rig and take it and my propane burner with me.

 

[CidahMastah]

Hmmmmm... that's a little strange, but it sounds like they fed 240V into the panel and through the double-pole breaker, but then forked the hots off to make 120V circuits.

Can you snap a pic of this breaker?

Yes I can definitely take a picture - unfortunately, I can't right now, but can later tonight (not in my house).

the 15 amp breaker looks like this (two slots with a fixed breaker bar - they don't move independently).
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BQSCCG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I looked all over for 240 plug in the garage too, but couldn't find one. The only significant power drawing items are garage door openers, but they are on the 20 amp circuit (I think).

This is why I thought it was so weird. Why set up a double pole 15 amp breaker with no 240 plug? I am sure there is a reason, i just can't think of it.

 

[Walker]

the 15 amp breaker looks like this (two slots with a fixed breaker bar - they don't move independently).
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BQSCCG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I looked all over for 240 plug in the garage too, but couldn't find one. The only significant power drawing items are garage door openers, but they are on the 20 amp circuit (I think).

This is why I thought it was so weird. Why set up a double pole 15 amp breaker with no 240 plug? I am sure there is a reason, i just can't think of it.

And, unlike the one in the pic, yours has GFI built into it?

It is strange. Does the chart on the subpanel have written down what it is connected to?

Hmmmmm.... is your water heater electric and located in the garage? I am wondering if that breaker is for it.

 

[Walker]

You wouldn't happen to have a picture of this set up would you? I can't visualize how the element interacts with the mash water/wort. Is the element under a false bottom or something?

Sorry for the crappy quality of the cell phone pins, but here is a shot of my electric kettle (left) and mash tun (right).

It's too fuzzy to see the details, but the short description is that wort comes out of the MLT and into the pump (the pump is the black thing under the table, hard to see in the pic). Wort comes up out of the top of the pump and into one end of the copper coil that is sitting in the electric kettle.

Here's the inside of the electric kettle:

There's no water in here right now, but when mashing, there will be enough water to cover the loops of the coil. The heater element is the long gray hing under the coil.

Wort flows through the coil and comes back out, flowing past the temp probe that I mounted inside of a chamber made of some copper fittings that I sweated together.

The wort them flows back to the MLT.

If the wort coming out of the coil is too cold, then the PID turns on the heater element, which heats the water, which heats the copper, which heats the wort flowing through it.

 

[CidahMastah]

And, unlike the one in the pic, yours has GFI built into it?

It is strange. Does the chart on the subpanel have written down what it is connected to?

Hmmmmm.... is your water heater electric and located in the garage? I am wondering if that breaker is for it.

My garage is detached, so all the house stuff (water heater etc, are located in the house and on the main 200 service panel). As for the GFI, I believe I misspoke. The 15amp and the 20 are hooked into GFI circuits. I thought that was the same thing, but it looks like you are talking about built in GFI in the panel - I will get a picture of it and maybe that will clear things up (sorry for the lack of know how on this one/inability to explain myself clearly - ugh)


When you operate, do you have a lid on? Looks like a pretty cool set up!

 

[Walker]

As for the GFI, I believe I mispoke. The 15amp and the 20 are hooked into GFI circuits. I thought that was the same thing - I will get a picture of it and maybe that will clear things up (sorry for the lack of know how on this one.)

No worries.

What I think is going on here is that they used that 2-pole breaker for no good reason other than to get two circuit breakers into one slot in the subpanel. From there, they fed power as 120v circuits to GFI receptacles in your garage. No single item in the garage is receiving both poles that come out of that breaker and utilizing 240v.

Strange.

Ah... crap. Earlier you said that the garage is fed by a 20A breaker in the main panel. Is that 20A breaker in the main panel a 2-pole breaker or just a single pole breaker?

If it's single pole, then your garage only has 120V available, and 20A, which puts you in a pickle.

As for GFI:

GFI is available built into receptacles for 120V, but you won't find 240V GFI receptacles. 240v gfi has to be built directly into the breaker (there will be a little "test" botton on the breaker) or you have to buy it built into a power cord that plugs into the wall. You'll have to spend some money there if you are concerned with safety. (I personally would never brew electrically with out GFI protection.)

 

[CidahMastah]

No worries.
Ah... crap. Earlier you said that the garage is fed by a 20A breaker in the main panel. Is that 20A breaker in the main panel a 2-pole breaker or just a single pole breaker?

The breaker in the main panel is 20 amp, it is a double fat breaker, but only one lever on it. Not sure what that means. So a breaker that is twice as thick - takes up two slots, but only has one lever.

So it looks like... I might be screwed because I can't run two elements at 1500W/120V unless I do it off a 12/3 extension cord from a circuit in the house.

regarding the GFI - again - looks like I can't do that unless I go for one line from the garage and a second 12/3 extension cord on a GFI from another 15amp circuit.

I am starting to think the only way around this is to run a dedicated circuit for 240 out to a box (from the main service panel), and plug into that when brewing. It would require a new larger breaker in the main service panel (I have three open slots), probably 50-75 feet of 6 or 8 gauge wire and the hardware for an outdoor box and plugs. Or I could just retrench it and stop being lazy.

I kinda wanted the 240 plug in the garage so I can heat it with electric when we use our climbing gym....

I think one word describes this best... sh!tballs...

 

[rcm_rx7]

That might be a blessing in disguise. You can then use a 5500 watt element for a much quicker brew day. Think of the time you'll save!

I went over all of this when planning my setup, and ultimately decided I wanted a dedicated 50amp 240 breaker for my brewing. I always have issues with other brew day stuff, I don't need electricity to be another problem.

 

[Walker]

The breaker in the main panel is 20 amp, it is a double fat breaker, but only one lever on it. Not sure what that means. So a breaker that is twice as thick - takes up two slots, but only has one lever.

Well, that's good news. I have NEVER seen a double-wide breaker that wasn't handling 240V.

So it looks like... I might be screwed because I can't run two elements at 1500W/120V unless I do it off a 12/3 extension cord from a circuit in the house.

Not so fast. Now that I have a description of the breaker in the main, I think you do have 240V coming to the garage and might be OK here.

regarding the GFI - again - looks like I can't do that unless I go for one line from the garage and a second 12/3 extension cord on a GFI from another 15amp circuit.

One option here would be to have the 20A breaker in the main panel swapped out for a 20A GFI breaker. That would protect the whole garage with GFI. You would have redundant GFI on the 120v receptacles, but that doesn't matter.

I am starting to think the only way around this is to run a dedicated circuit for 240 out to a box, and plug into that when brewing. It would require a new larger breaker, probably 50-75 feet of 6 or 8 gauge wire and the hardware for an outdoor box and plugs.

I kinda wanted the 240 plug in the garage so I can heat it with electric when we use our climbing gym....

I think one word describes this best... sh!tballs...

Don't jump off the cliff yet. Things might not be that bad. You just need to sort out WTF is going on with that 15A breaker in your garage panel.

If it's really sending through the two separate hots and just using them to make 120v circuits, you are still in business.

You could do several things here:

(1) tap new wires off the 2-pole breaker and install a proper 240V outlet. You still need to resolve the GFI issue somehow, which could be via replacing the 20A breaker in the main panel with a 20A GFI breaker and protecting the entire garage.
(2) just utilize the existing 120V GFI receptacles, but you WILL need to use two separate 120V heating elements instead of a single 240V element in this situation.

 

[CidahMastah]

OK. So there may still be hope. Why can't I be at home right now!!!

I will get a couple of pictures of the breakers and post up tonight.

I would love a 240 plug in there. But the question is how will I power other things in there (lights, etc) that run off that circuit.

First things first - gotta grab the pictures of the panels in the house and garage.

 

[CidahMastah]

OK check these out. Main breaker and sub panel in the garage. Slot 7 is garage breaker. I emailed this over to you as well (so you can see the bigger files).

 

[Walker]

ah! the garage panel is just a tiny thing. that's why they used the slim line breaker. And, it's not really a double-pole breaker. It is two independent breakers packaged into one module. (They each have their own reset lever and those levers are not bonded together.)

and the breaker that feeds the garage in the main panel is 2-pole, sending 240V out to the garage.

Can you determine which breaker in the garage controls what?

Three breakers in total, and I would suspect that one of them is the receptacles, one of them is the lights, and one of them is the garage door opener.

Can you flip them off, one at a time and figure it out?

 

[CidahMastah]

Yes just checked

from left to right:
20 = garage door openers
15 = wall sockets (I think)
15 = inner and outer lights

 

[Walker]

Yes just checked

from left to right:
20 = garage door openers
15 = wall sockets (I think)
15 = inner and outer lights

Well.... at least you know what's what now.

Without doing any wiring work, you could hijack two of the three circuits in your garage and use two 120v heating elements. My guess is that the 20 breaker for the garage door opener uses one of the 120v hot lines from the 240v/20A feed into the garage and the two 15A breakers are sharing the other 120v hot line from the 240v feed.

You could probably have an outlet installed on the wall that uses the 20A breaker's output rather than go up to the ceiling and plug in there.

But... this solution means using two elements and cutting two holes, one hole and one heatstick, or two heatsticks.

You could be a little more heavy-handed with the re-wiring work and get yourself a proper 240v outlet installed.

Bummer that things are like this, but I doubt the person that had the garage wired had any intention of running an current thirsty brewing machine out there.

 

[Walker]

talk to your brother-in-law about the situation.

I am not an electrician, so I am not familiar with building code, but maybe it's possible to tap off the feed coming into the garage and put in a 20A/240V receptacle in addition to powering the garage panel.

If that's allowed, then you would still want to swap the 20A breaker in the main panel with a GFI breaker, but you would then have a 20A/240v GFI receptacle in the garage to use.

You would be sharing the available current with everything else in the garage, but 3000W or 3500W (if that's available in a water eater element) could be used and still leave enough juice to run your lights and a few things plugged into the wall in the garage.

If you can't tap a 240v receptacle off the main feed to the garage, this is going to require two elements running at 120v.

 

[CidahMastah]

Thanks for the help, the wife was getting pissed that I was on the computer haha. Anyway, I am digging into the prospect of running that new line, how much material and effort it would cost. My brother in law is getting back to me on how to set it up with a dual pole 50amp breaker on the main, a new subpanel in the garage and a 30 amp GFI breaker and the 20 amp breaker in a new subpanel. So basically, it won't happen tomorrow, but at least he can't help me set up the back end of it.

My brother in law did say he was going to try to find me some stuff lying around from friends on the cheap. I told him whatever it is just buy it, and I will get him back ha!

as with everything, it will take a little time and cash!

 

[CidahMastah]

Bummer that things are like this, but I doubt the person that had the garage wired had any intention of running an current thirsty brewing machine out there.

I am pretty sure the cat before me had no idea all the cool sh!t I was gonna do in this house

Will post back and let you know the progress - really appreciate your time on this, helping a brotha out.

 

[bruin_ale]

you already have a line that's capable of 40A right? Why not just replace the breaker in the main panel, then replace the garage subpanel with a bigger panel. Laying a whole new line and putting in yet another panel in your garage seems like an unnecessary expense, but maybe I'm missing a piece of the puzzle here.

 

[Walker]

you already have a line that's capable of 40A right? Why not just replace the breaker in the main panel, then replace the garage subpanel with a bigger panel. Laying a whole new line and putting in yet another panel in your garage seems like an unnecessary expense, but maybe I'm missing a piece of the puzzle here.

He said the wire buried under the ground from his main panel to his garage was 10 AWG, so it could handle 30A.

He could beef up the breaker in the main panel if this is true and get more juice to the garage, but he would need a different panel out there since he's maxed out on breakers in the little one he has now.