MplsUgly
Well-Known Member
Be advised, this is just a rant, not a question, and not particularly useful for others. Read at your own risk.
Well, it finally happened. I brewed my first batch on my electric system that I had been building over the winter and overall things went really well. My system is a 50 amp, back to back herms system in kegs. I made a simple APA that I have made twice before as a first beer. The reason is that the grain bill and hop bill aren’t too big so if it all went south I wouldn’t be out a whole lot.
Pre Brew:
Heating water in this system is awesome. I heat my strike water in my boil kettle while I'm heating my Sparge/HLT water so everything can come up to temp really quickly. It's also nice that I can turn it all on and then go upstairs to make and eat breakfast. Go back downstairs and your ready to mash in. Slick as dog ****.
Mash:
Maintaining mash temp was easy. It took a little time to sort out my offset but after that it was smooth. Efficiency is my only issue. I have been from 70% up to 85% in the past but I think those swings were due to bad process control and consistency of mash temps. This was a big reason why I wanted to go electric. So this brew I was targeting a 151 mash temp. I had my HLT at 153.5, wort inlet to the mash tun was 152, mash outlet was 150. After an hour I ramped up my HLT to 178, waited for my mash to hit 160 to mash out and then started to runoff and sparge.
All in all, I ended up with a mash efficiency of 91%! This was way over what I anticipated for my recipe so I ended up tossing some wort and adding some water to bring my pre-boil gravity back down to what I wanted, 1.038 I think, target post boil OG was 1.042, I hit 1.043
Boil:
This was a huge and unexpected improvement over gas. Number one is that I could start heating while I was still collecting. In the past, I only had one burner so swapping from HLT to boil was a pain. Controlling the boil with the Auber EZ boil was awesome. I always hated the gas knob and not having specific input info. With the EZ boil you could easily adjust the power as needed and the boil was consistent. I ended up at 65% for most of the boil, turn down to 45 during additions.
Cooling:
I need to get some new hoses for my immersion chiller that will reach my sink. I had to use a garden hose and I had way too much hose strung around my basement and a couple leaky connections that were a pain. The one upside of the electric brewery is now I have an RTD in my boil kettle so I can see my temp on the PID while I'm chilling and don’t need to keep checking with a digital thermometer.
Problems:
Plumbing. I need a better chiller configuration.
Ventilation: I need a bigger fan. My rebermaid hood worked ok but my 450 CFM fan doesn’t cut it. I also had condensation issues in the hood. By the end of this the basement was getting muggy. I think I can add another 450 CFM fan the operation.
Summery:
Do it. If anyone is considering going electric I say do it. The brew day is just way more relaxing. I feel like I don’t need to watch everything so closely. I don’t need to shlep everything out from my basement to the garage and back. I can do laundry while I brew and other productive stuffaround the house. Also, its way faster. I used to start a brew day at 8:00 and be cleaned up by 4:00. This brew I didn’t start until 11:00, took some extra time to make sure things were working and I was still done by and clean by 3:00. That’s a 3 hour savings of weekend time.
Well, it finally happened. I brewed my first batch on my electric system that I had been building over the winter and overall things went really well. My system is a 50 amp, back to back herms system in kegs. I made a simple APA that I have made twice before as a first beer. The reason is that the grain bill and hop bill aren’t too big so if it all went south I wouldn’t be out a whole lot.
Pre Brew:
Heating water in this system is awesome. I heat my strike water in my boil kettle while I'm heating my Sparge/HLT water so everything can come up to temp really quickly. It's also nice that I can turn it all on and then go upstairs to make and eat breakfast. Go back downstairs and your ready to mash in. Slick as dog ****.
Mash:
Maintaining mash temp was easy. It took a little time to sort out my offset but after that it was smooth. Efficiency is my only issue. I have been from 70% up to 85% in the past but I think those swings were due to bad process control and consistency of mash temps. This was a big reason why I wanted to go electric. So this brew I was targeting a 151 mash temp. I had my HLT at 153.5, wort inlet to the mash tun was 152, mash outlet was 150. After an hour I ramped up my HLT to 178, waited for my mash to hit 160 to mash out and then started to runoff and sparge.
All in all, I ended up with a mash efficiency of 91%! This was way over what I anticipated for my recipe so I ended up tossing some wort and adding some water to bring my pre-boil gravity back down to what I wanted, 1.038 I think, target post boil OG was 1.042, I hit 1.043
Boil:
This was a huge and unexpected improvement over gas. Number one is that I could start heating while I was still collecting. In the past, I only had one burner so swapping from HLT to boil was a pain. Controlling the boil with the Auber EZ boil was awesome. I always hated the gas knob and not having specific input info. With the EZ boil you could easily adjust the power as needed and the boil was consistent. I ended up at 65% for most of the boil, turn down to 45 during additions.
Cooling:
I need to get some new hoses for my immersion chiller that will reach my sink. I had to use a garden hose and I had way too much hose strung around my basement and a couple leaky connections that were a pain. The one upside of the electric brewery is now I have an RTD in my boil kettle so I can see my temp on the PID while I'm chilling and don’t need to keep checking with a digital thermometer.
Problems:
Plumbing. I need a better chiller configuration.
Ventilation: I need a bigger fan. My rebermaid hood worked ok but my 450 CFM fan doesn’t cut it. I also had condensation issues in the hood. By the end of this the basement was getting muggy. I think I can add another 450 CFM fan the operation.
Summery:
Do it. If anyone is considering going electric I say do it. The brew day is just way more relaxing. I feel like I don’t need to watch everything so closely. I don’t need to shlep everything out from my basement to the garage and back. I can do laundry while I brew and other productive stuffaround the house. Also, its way faster. I used to start a brew day at 8:00 and be cleaned up by 4:00. This brew I didn’t start until 11:00, took some extra time to make sure things were working and I was still done by and clean by 3:00. That’s a 3 hour savings of weekend time.
