First Brew With New Equipment...Murphy's Law

[tre9er]

So I just built a dual 1500w 120v kettle this week, ordered a Corona Mill, mounted it to a bucket, replaced cotter-pin with bolt, shimmed it out with washers, hooked it to the drill, etc.

First thing happens is my corded 3/8" drill starts smoking as I'm crushing grain. So I get the hack-saw and have to cut part of the side of the bucket ring off so I can get the crank handle back on, then proceed to manually crush 11lbs. of grain.

Then, as I'm emptying my preheat water from my mash tun, I pour strike water in and forget to close the valve...temp drops rapidly...CRAP! So back to heating new strike water...

Gonna be a late night tonight..

 

[tre9er]

Good news is that new kettle heats strike from 50 to 170 in like 20 minutes, so I didn't lose too much time!

But...then I somehow missed mash temp. I am in basement, so I put grain temp at 60 in software, which asked for strike of 168. I went to 170, cut heat, and poured it into pre-heated mash-tun. Well, it normalized around 160 before grain, dropped to 150 with it. So I'm boiling half gallon of water trying to get back up to 154.

like I said...gonna be a late night. Good thing I have some New Belgium Ranger IPA

 

[ChrisCorley]

Just remember this is what makes your beer unique. Dont stress the brew day you'll be able to taste it in the beer.

 

[tre9er]

Finally boiling and man I love heating elements



Seriously, this is the most consistent boil I've ever seen, not too much, not too little, and NO PID/PWM controls. Just both 1500w elements switched on. Nice hot break on initial boil, no hop boilovers...I friggin LOVE heating elements. That and they're a fraction of the cost to operate and bear no poisonous gas risk. Why didn't I do this sooner? ~$150 total for kettle, elements, and this-and-that to complete it. Money well-spent.

 

[tre9er]

Good news! I hit 1.052 OG! Stoked! :rockin: This is the biggest beer yet for me and the efficiency of crushing my own grain (Corona) and BIAB double vessel has paid off!

OK, maybe it was closer to 1.050. Still the biggest beer I've made (others weren't supposed to be quite that big). So I'm stoked.

 

[tre9er]

Putting her into the FV. Sample tasted nice. Glad to be done

 

[jholen]

Nice!

 

[mikeysab]

Finally boiling and man I love heating elements

<img src="https://www.homebrewtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=50955"/>

Seriously, this is the most consistent boil I've ever seen, not too much, not too little, and NO PID/PWM controls. Just both 1500w elements switched on. Nice hot break on initial boil, no hop boilovers...I friggin LOVE heating elements. That and they're a fraction of the cost to operate and bear no poisonous gas risk. Why didn't I do this sooner? ~$150 total for kettle, elements, and this-and-that to complete it. Money well-spent.

How do you feel about heating elements?

Did you follow directions to build your kettle?

 

[tre9er]

I did tons if research here and then jumped in. ordered low watt density elements and the locknut and o-ring from bargain fittings. I then decided how I wanted to encase them and went with PVC couplings. I used jb weld but didn't completely pot the connections so I could re use wiring if an element went bad. The jb broke off one element and i'm super gluing it and will probably redo the jb weld, too. They heat like a dream indoors and for less money than propane or gas, with no poisonous emissions. Highly recommend

 

[tre9er]

More pics of e kettle in "about to install elements" thread