Need advice converting to electric

[Hannabrew]

Unfortunately I can't brew indoors even once I go electric...simply no room. However I'm tired of propane and want to go electric.

I don't have any available 240 circuits but do have room if I wanted to pay for one...but then I'd need to figure out where to put the outlet as I change brewing locations depending on the weather...if it's nice I'm in the backyard, if not I'm in the garage.

All of my 120 circuits are 20 amps so I'm leaning towards using those for my electric brewing needs. I have a dedicated circuit in my garage and I have another outside my house. I could run another extension cord from a 3rd circuit inside the house if required.

A bit about my setup...

I have 2 15G spike v3 kettles and a 10G AIH kettle I use when I sparge (only for 10G batches). I brew mostly 5G batches but the occasional 10G batch. I tend to have pretty large preboil volumes (~8G for 5G batch) due to heavy hopping and a strong desire for clear wort in the fermenter. I try to do double batch brew days whenever possible.

I have an amazon bucket heater I use to preheat my strike water.

I have a single chugger pump that wears many hats including all the transfers, continuous wort recirculation, and whirlpooling. I may add another pump in the near future to assist with double brew days.

I also currently use an 1800 induction burner to manually control mash temps. My buddy gave me another induction burner that is 1800w as well that I currently don't use.

So that's all my equipment and the relevant processes.

I'm looking for suggestions on converting my boil kettle to electric...the following are things I've been pondering.

120v options

- 2250w hot rod along with spare induction. Pros, no modifications needed on my kettle, portable. Can use the hotrod for heating liquid as well. Cons, would need at least 3 circuits if using both burners, hot rod, and chugger. Also manually controlled

- install 2 elements in my BK. I'm a novice at this...do I do the 240v elements and run them on 120? Can 1 controller handle both elements? What's the best way to get them in my kettle? I live close enough to spike that I could get them to do the work if that made sense. Cons would be the elements are dedicated to this kettle only, cost due to controller(s).

240 option

- suck it up and get the 240 outlet installed on the exterior of the house. Put a 5500w element in the kettle with a controller. Question here is how long of an extension cord can I use with the 240v outlet?

Any assistance with this decision is much appreciated. I've been pondering this for the past 6 months or so and have been all over the place with what I think is the right direction.

 

[OneInTheHand]

Get the 240v outside. Do you have other potential 240 applications, like welding or an electric car charging station?

I’m planning on going electric soon and right now the design I’m planning has similar equipment to what you listed. I was going to go with a thick bottom welded 15g kettle, probably spike or brew built. 15g mash tun with false bottom, probably the cheap AIB kettles. And then a cheap 8 or 10 gallon HLT. 240 volt hot rod for the kettle. I was thinking a hot rod so that I could move it to hlt and also use the kettle on propane if needed. Gravity feed the MT to the kettle. And then use a pump for just moving water around. That way I don’t have to deal with cleaning hoses.

From multiple posts on these forums the 120v isn’t going to give you a vigorous boil on full 5 gallon batches. If you are going to be outside where you can’t control the temp and wind then you want to have that extra heating capability.

You can have a long extension cord, just use a thicker gauge wire. The electrician that puts in 240 could give you the details.

 

[mabrungard]

You will be limited with a 120v solution. While you don't need more than about 2000w to boil a typical homebrew kettle, having a lot more wattage is very helpful for bringing your wort to boil quicker. It could easily knock a half hour or more off your brewday. Your main panel has the 240v and if you have a couple of breaker slots left in the panel, the 240v breakers can be added. I recommend adding an outlet in your garage if that garage panel has enough capacity.

 

[teesherv]

I use 2 hot rods in my set up and they work great. Installed a 240v circuit in the garage and, on nice days, brew with the doors open. Extension cords and brewing don't mix well for me.