How Many Watts for a Electric Water heater?

[sopa0502]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post. I tried to look around on the forum to find the answer but I could not find anything directly to my question. Okay, so I want to control my brewing equipment electronically but I have one question,

1: How Many Watts does the electric heating element need to be?
-Will a 1650 Watts be enough to boil a 6.5 gallon pot of water?

-I would really like to use 120V power instead of 220V. I don't have an available plug for 220V. This will also be moving around a little more than normal so it would be much easier to run 120V as well.

- I cannot find any heating element using 120V over 1650 Watts.

-If not, can I add (2) 1650 Watt heating elements. Would this be enough?
> I was thinking that I could have the first heating element to heat the wort and try to maintain temp within one degree. Than I would have the second heating element come on only if it drops by 3-4 degrees. So I would have a two stage heat source. Would this work?

I am very new to home brewing but I know my way around electronic controls and I enjoy working with them. I know I can do the wiring I just don't know if it makes sense relative to brewing.

Thanks,
Paul

 

[iijakii]

1650 will definitely not be enough. If you have insulation on your pot and it's narrow you MIGHT be able to get away with 2000. Some have good long, some say it tops out around 5-6gal.

Do you have two different circuits you could use? Any kitchen will have that. You could run two 1500w elements.

 

[TreeBeard]

This element sizing calculator link has been posted in a few different discussions. It will give you an idea of element sizing based on your batch size.

http://gnipsel.com/beer/software/calculators/electric-heat.xls

 

[kenh]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post. I tried to look around on the forum to find the answer but I could not find anything directly to my question. Okay, so I want to control my brewing equipment electronically but I have one question,

1: How Many Watts does the electric heating element need to be?
-Will a 1650 Watts be enough to boil a 6.5 gallon pot of water?

-I would really like to use 120V power instead of 220V. I don't have an available plug for 220V. This will also be moving around a little more than normal so it would be much easier to run 120V as well.

- I cannot find any heating element using 120V over 1650 Watts.

-If not, can I add (2) 1650 Watt heating elements. Would this be enough?
> I was thinking that I could have the first heating element to heat the wort and try to maintain temp within one degree. Than I would have the second heating element come on only if it drops by 3-4 degrees. So I would have a two stage heat source. Would this work?

I am very new to home brewing but I know my way around electronic controls and I enjoy working with them. I know I can do the wiring I just don't know if it makes sense relative to brewing.

Thanks,
Paul

I ran a 2000 watt heating element that I plugged into a kitchen wall outlet for a while. I used it + my stove top to bring my wort up to boil and the combination worked well. Just to see what would happen I tried the element by itself and it eventually brought my 6.5 gallons of wort up to a slow boil but it took over an hour.

These days I brew with a 240V 5500 Watt element and I'll never go back.

If you want to go with plug-in electric heat and want or need to stay with 120V I recommend that you install two 1650 Watt elements, one with a long power cord. Then plug each on into it's own circuit. I know that most houses have two 20 Amp circuits in the kitchen. You could plug one in by the stove and the other across the room.

 

[kappclark]

You will need more wattage to even think about a boil..

I do 5G batches..

I use 2 1000W bucket heaters to heat sparge water for mash...but the boil happens outside on the porch with gas..no way it will happen @ 2000W

Eventually, when I figure out the venting, I will get the boil to happen in the basement as well..

Good luck,

 

[augiedoggy]

Just trying to be helpful here but up in the tan bar there is a "search this forum" function.... That will get you answers to questions like these that are asked weekly without having to wait for others to repeat the same answers and "reinvent the wheel" ...you need to be in the main "electric section to use this or it will only search this thread.
Theres tons of threads discussing this... some have luck with 2 1500w elements and some claim they can use on 2000w element but I dont see that working unless the pot is covered which is bad. others insulate everything which is more work that just using a proper sized element in most cases...

 

[kal]

I would recommend 4500W for boiling 6.5 gallons.

As others have said, you may be able to get away with less if you insulate, use a chimney, etc, but ideal would be 4500W.

That requires a 30A / 240V circuit.

Kal

 

[dyqik]

2400W to 3000W (on 240V) is usual for UK spec electric boil kettles for brewing, and there are products available that use 2000W elements in boilers (can't say how well those ones work though). That really is enough for a 36 UK pint (one pin) batch (about 6-6.5 US gallons into fermenter), even in an uninsulated keggle or the typical PP boil kettles that UK home brew shops sell. I've brewed many batches on this spec of kettle. This will typically give a good rolling boil, but not much risk of boil over in a keggle sized boiler. Two 1500W elements on separate 115V 15A circuits will better or equal this, and two 1650W elements will be better still.

I currently heat my sparge water with a single 1000W bucket heater in a 5 gallon cooler - takes an hour and a half for 5 US gallons from 50F to 170F, but it does get there, so I just start at the same time as I start heating the strike water (on gas). I'm still on gas for the boil kettle as well.

offtopic - does anyone know of a source for Polypropylene 10 gallon buckets in the US? That would be perfect for a cheap easily modified boil kettle with a couple of 1500W elements. It'd be a useful to compare the price to S/S pots, anyway.