Looking for experiences with BrewHardware Hotrod

[DVCNick]

I ordered the 1500W version yesterday. My plans for it are as follows:

1) Supplement my propane burner, specifically for mash and sparge water heating to drive my propane costs lower. It will cost me about 20 cents an hour to run the Hotrod, and I'd guess the propane is around 10 times that depending on how high it is turned up.

2) Save time - I ordered a 15amp smart outlet and temp controller to go with it (my current Inkbirds and smart outlets are 10A max). Eventually I envision having my entire volume of mash and sparge water in one kettle, and have the Hotrod start at some point very early in the morning and wake up to fully heated water. This would save me a solid half hour on brew day, maybe more, especially for a 10 gallon batch.

I found one review online that stated the 1650W version would heat 9 gallons of water at a rate of just over one degree per minute. I would hope it would be easy to scale that in either direction based on the volume of water being heated.

Has anyone else observed this rate of heating as well? For the 1500W version I'm thinking of just starting under the assumption that it will do exactly one degree per minute in 10 gallons of water. If it is a little slower than that I can tweak the timing after the first try; the temp controller should keep it from over shooting.

(Hopefully the temp controller and smart outlet mfgs aren't embellishing the numbers since I'll be right at the limit for both)

Once I have wort I'm still planning to pull out the heat stick and use the propane to go up to boil and maintain the boil to simplify cleaning, fine adjustments in temp once boiling etc, but this could still cut my gas use in half if this thing will be good enough to handle the initial heating of the mash and sparge water.

Did my first 10 gallon batch last weekend and probably went through the better part of a full propane tank.

 

[Genuine]

I have 6 or so years experience with the Hotrod Heatstick at both 120v and 240v. If you get a 1500w element, you're correct that it'll do about a degree per minute. At 7 gallons in the kettle, the highest temp we could get to was 190 degrees (keep in mind the kettle was uninsulated, about 40-50 degrees outside in a barn. Now I switched it over to 240v for my Kettle rims system and it heats up incredibly quick with a 5500w element.

 

[DVCNick]

Sweet. So if I have 9 gallons and change total for a 5-gallon batch, sounds like I can just set it to start an hour and a half before I wake up and be pretty much there. Or 2.5- 3 hours before for the total volume on a 10 gallon batch.

My garage doesn't get much below 50 unless it gets really cold here, which it isn't often.

 

[applescrap]

I have had a hotrod for a long time. I chose it after a s... ton of research and I have never ever regretted it. Dude, its a no brainer. Sry didnt read your post just figured I would share my experience. With two 5500w elements and a couple 30 g kettles you could go nuts. I make ten gallon batches in just about 3 hours with one 5500w. Best of luck ill post later when im not clearly 3 sheets to wind.

 

[DVCNick]

lol a man after my own heart!

 

[ba-brewer]

I have two of them as my system runs off of two 120V circuits, one has 1500W and the other a 2250W element. I normally do 5gal batches but can do a 10batch(13gal preboil). It is a bit slow for 10gal but once up to temp I need to cut back on power. I fly sparge so even though they are slow the boil is like 10mins after hitting full volume.

I started upgrading my system with dedicated elements to try and retire the hot rods but man do they make a efficient system. I still use the 2250W along with a RIMS to heat mash and sparge water.

I upgrade to fixed elements as using them to heat wort the cleaning is a bit tedious.

 

[DVCNick]

Sounds like it should work really well for my intended use then, and long as the smart plug and temp controller can actually handle the max current.

I don't really have the wiring right now to easily go full electric. Got a couple circuits inside that would be close enough to run two, but then lose access to my cooling water. I just have one in the garage.

 

[DVCNick]

Got it yesterday and did a leak test and then a half hour heating test on exactly five gallons. It brought it up 56 degrees in that time. So it is about exactly what I expected based on the reviews, slightly under two degrees per minute with 5 gallons and I assume that will scale almost linearly for different volumes and times, so just under one degree per minute in 10 gallons.

Should work well for me. Only problem so far is my $10 China wifi socket is certainly maxed out. Plugged straight into the wall the element is actually using almost 1650w (over 13.5 amps... I got the advertised 1500w unit). Plugged into the wifi socket, the draw actually drops to right around 1500w/12.9A. So the socket is limiting the draw and it is getting hot. I measured about 170 degrees at the peak and it was there holding for about the last ten minutes of the test. I did hold there and continued to function normally but I have a bad feeling about that. Can't find an operating temp spec in the literature.

Does anyone have a wifi socket that is legitimately good up past 15A? With this one I can plug it into an extension cord and leave it on the concrete garage floor, so if it blows up hopefully it at least won't burn the house down.

 

[applescrap]

Sweet would love to see a pic. Glad you made sure it fits your kettle before you bought. Although Bobby is so sharp he could have helped with that. The 5500w is sweet to. If you had got that it runs at like 1700 whatever at 120 and would be upgradable, but I love the idea of simple and depending on your setup 120 is simple. Not an electrician, but I dont like/or understand to be fair this wifi electric talk. You need a proper rated amp setup and a gfci, for sure. But your house, life, risk. I dont think my old house kitchen is gfci and it's aluminum to copper and I run plenty of powerful stuff on it, so I cant talk. Easy would be to install a gfci at the box assuming all proper wire sizes and amps etc. That said I dont know jack s... so better ask a qualified electrician.

 

[DVCNick]

This was my test setup. It is a GFI outlet.

Electric meter is plugged directly into the wall outlet. Small extension cord is plugged into the meter. Wi-Fi socket is plugged into the extension cord. Hotrod is plugged into the Wi-Fi socket.

I want the wifi socket in there to give me the ability to schedule it to start early in the morning before I wake up.

 

[DVCNick]

The regular breaker for this circuit is 20A and there was nothing else on it so that should be good. Same exact situation I'll have in the garage.

 

[DVCNick]

Just to reiterate, right now, the wifi socket (the little white box in the picture) is my area of concern... I'm pushing it to its absolute design limit according to its literature, and it reached 170F during my 30 minute test. I'm wondering if anyone has a very similar device they are using with a little headroom in the designed numbers that hasn't blown up on them over a longer period of use.

 

[ba-brewer]

Not familiar with that control box. Everybody has their own comfort level, but I am not too comfortable about letting thing like that running unattended.

 

[applescrap]

Oh I see, sure, get it started early. Pretty clever, perhaps a robust plug timer of some kind could work too. I havent used one of those wifi connections yet but super cool. Maybe you can find one with a little more headroom.

 

[DVCNick]

Maybe instead I'll just set an alarm, wake my arse up early, go to the garage and plug it in, and then go back to bed.

 

[David SEMich]

I just used my 2250W Hot Rod for the first time. It cut 30 minutes off my brew day (5hr vs 4.5hr). I really wanted a 5500W/40V unit but these elements doesn't fit in my gear.

I've been heating my mash and sparge water on a high-output burner inside and moving to propane outside. Primary usage is heating mash and sparge water in my workshop. I'll also use it to heat cleaning water.

I learned a few things in this first batch. Don't measure the temp directly above the element; the convection creates a hot pocket. I undershot my mash temp. That lead me to put the element back in the igloo mash tun. It raised the temp to target quickly. I stirred while heating but there was evidence of scorching on the element.

Overall, this is a great investment to supplement propane.

 

[DVCNick]

I've now used it twice; first on a 10 gallon batch and second on a 5 gallon. It is meeting my expectations.

10gal: I started with about 7.5 gallons strike water, and set the element to come on about an hour before I woke up. Heating proceeded as expected until it got near the target temp; at that point progress slowed; not unexpected since much more heat is being lost out the sides of the kettle. It took about two hours to get to ~170 for my transfer to the mash tun. All electric. I then switched the element over to supplement heating of the 10.25 gallons of sparge water. Using electric + about 30 minutes of propane, I got that sparge water heated up in just about an hour; maybe a little longer. Next time I'll start the gas a little sooner so I can have it transferred to the HLT and all ready to go by exactly the time the 1hr mash is over. My only other 10 gallon batch, which was done with 100% propane, took over an hour of gas to get the spare water up to temp.

5gal: Took almost an hour to get 4.6 gallons of strike water up to temp. I made the same mistake as David, didn't really turn off the element and mix up the water to make sure I was measuring an even temperature, and came out a little low after the transfer to mash tun. Next time I'll know. This time I dipped the element in the MT for another 10 minutes or so before adding grain to get it there. 5.5gal of sparge water got to about 160 in a little over an hour before I called it good enough, transferred it to the HLT and started lautering. I've read that having the sparge water all the way up to 170+ really isn't all that crucial. We'll see how the beer turns out, but I can't quite get it there in an hour with all electric, so I'd either have to mash longer or supplement with a few minutes of gas moving forward.

My wifi plug hasn't blown up yet. All in all, so far a positive experience and I intend to keep using it.