Electric Heat Control?

[E93Bausch]

I want to turn my Keggle into an electric brew pot. I also want to be able to control the amount of power being put into the wort. I can build things and brew a decent beer but the finer points of electricity confuse me so I need some guidance. I live in the USA where our 220V power supply is basically two 110V lines put together.

Here is my plan. I will use a Camco 02963 5500W 240V hot water heater element. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BPG4LI/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 To control the heat I will put a standard light switch on one of the 220 leads. This will be a Hi/Low switch. On the other I will put a 3800W SCR Voltage Regulator http://sumaoutlet.com/3800w-scr-voltage-regulator-dimming-light-speed-control-p-2800.html I figure since it is only controlling half the load 3800W should be plenty.

Will this work?

 

[Tytonegro]

I'm living in Europe (Portugal) where we have 230 V ac. So I don't understand how you would connect two 110V lines together to get 220, Are these from two different phases, being 180 degrees out of phase or are these tow systems with both their own neutral so you can connect them in series? ...

And what do you mean by using a standard light switch to switch hi/low?

I guess that the mentioned 3800 Watt dimmer will get very hot even with 2750 Watt, the heatsink is quite small!!

 

[flugelizor]

Disclaimer: I am not an electrician.
But I did just successfully build a 50A HERMS system.

I think it would work with one caveat:
In the US you have 4 lines: two hots, neutral and ground.
To power at 220 you want Hot1 and hot2 connected to the two posts of the element.
To power 120 you want Hot1 and Neutral connected to the element.
To achieve this you need a double throw switch connected to one post.
Three positions are Hot1, OFF, Neutral.
Because in the "off" position you won't get any heat at all from the element. So with a normal light switch you will kill the whole circuit in the off position instead of cutting the power by half.

 

[E93Bausch]

I have done a lot of studying since I made my first post here and understand electric a little better than I did then. At the time I was just looking into making an electric kettle as inexpensively as possible. Since then my ambitions grew and with some funding from my now co-brewer brother, a stroke of luck getting access to a panel shop and a lot of effort I have an E-HERMS that gets 93% efficiency.

The system is controlled by a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) the programming is over my head but I have gotten some help with it and am brewing.

 

[flugelizor]

Very nice! I didn't notice the OP date!