Induction Cooktops

[Siberian]

In case anyone really wants it... the hood/dome earlier in this thread appears to be this or something very similar:

http://morebeer.com/products/copper-hood-50l-braumeister.html

At $439 though it costs more than my kettle!

 

[humann_brewing]

In case anyone really wants it... the hood/dome earlier in this thread appears to be this or something very similar:

http://morebeer.com/products/copper-hood-50l-braumeister.html

At $439 though it costs more than my kettle!

well that doesn't seem worth it, might as well go for one of those 3,000 induction burners too.

 

[CarbonTom]

I've gone to doing much the same thing as that UC Davis setup after seeing that photo in another thread. Except well, that cover turns out to be really pricey and I couldn't bring myself to buy one, plus I'm not sure I can find one to fit my kettle. So I made one out of a huge 18" stainless steel bowl.

View attachment 228402

I've made a Oktoberfest on this setup with a bunch of Pilsner malt and did a 90 minute boil. No cooked veg/creamed corn taste in the beer so I think my volatile boil off was solid. If anything was going to show DMS left in the wort, I'd think it would be a recipe that was over 50% pilsner malt. I'm still boiling off around 1 gallon of wort an hour, so plenty of steam is finding it's way out of the kettle to carry off anything nasty.

I can maintain a rolling boil with 2700 watts on the IC3500 with this on and no wrapping the kettle, if I leave the power maxed it will start to boil over even on 10 gallon batches. I also seem to reach a boil more quickly then even with the original flat cover installed. Give I have power to spare with this on I'm probably enlarge the size of my holes. This will also allow me to clean up my holes, they are pretty crap right now. I'm going to expand the holes with my new knock-out punch set which should make a cleaner cut and let me easily get it up to 4 holes that are 1-1/4" each.

Right now I have 4x probably around 3/4" diameter holes in the dome. I made a damper inspired by a weber BBQ kettle from scrap copper that lets me easily close the lid fully while bringing it up to a boil.

That lid looks sick. Do you have the induction top on a propane burner stand? Does the unit heat up at all? or could you put it on a stainless table, kind of like other peoples electric brewery set ups? Also, does your cooktop have a standard outlet cable?

 

[Siberian]

That lid looks sick. Do you have the induction top on a propane burner stand? Does the unit heat up at all? or could you put it on a stainless table, kind of like other peoples electric brewery set ups? Also, does your cooktop have a standard outlet cable?

Yes it's on an old propane burner stand. I had it around and it was a nice height for my setup.

The stand doesn't heat up at all and I don't see any reason I couldn't setup on a stainless table if I wanted.

It has an outlet cable that I was able to find a matching wall socket @ Home Depot for if that's what your asking.

 

[jrgtr42]

Earlier in the thread there someone mentioned efficiencies using induction, versus hot plate versus immersion heat stick.
For comparison sake, what would the efficiency of your average propane turkey fryer rig be? If anyone knows offhand.
Looking also above, people seem to be using insulation on the bigger kettles (10 - 15 gallons) with the Avantco IC3500 plate. Would I be correct in that a 5-gallon batch, starting with 6.5 - 7 gallons in an 8 gallon kettle should be easily handled by that "burner" with no lid or insulation?

 

[IslandLizard]

Earlier in the thread there someone mentioned efficiencies using induction, versus hot plate versus immersion heat stick.
For comparison sake, what would the efficiency of your average propane turkey fryer rig be? If anyone knows offhand.
Looking also above, people seem to be using insulation on the bigger kettles (10 - 15 gallons) with the Avantco IC3500 plate. Would I be correct in that a 5-gallon batch, starting with 6.5 - 7 gallons in an 8 gallon kettle should be easily handled by that "burner" with no lid or insulation?

Efficiency of propane burners varies a lot more than electric, and is a bit harder to calculate. It depends on the whole system, for example how much of the generated heat leaks away from the kettle, that's a large factor. People who shortened the distance between burner and kettle and added a good wind shield around their Bayou burners reported 100% or more gain in efficiency just by cutting the time it takes to get to a boil in half. That's huge!

Time how long it takes to bring 10-20 gallons to a boil on your system, and calculate the theoretical energy required to do that. Weight the tank before and after, it tells you how many pounds of propane you used and convert that to the total energy potential of that amount of propane. Divide the first by the second number and you've got your efficiency.

Because of increased heat loss at higher temps, it takes more energy to raise the kettle from 140 to 210 than from 70 to 140, for example. You could use that knowledge to calculate fractional efficiencies for different temp ranges, and learn where curbing heat loss brings you the largest gains.

I have an 8 gallon triple ply kettle and can boil 7 gallons of wort with no problem (and no insulation) on an IC3500. I do need a lid 2/3s on and several layers of bubble wrap when boiling 13 gallons in a 15 gallon kettle. Both are wide aspect kettles (MoreBeer).