New all-grain system recommendations

[appleton11]

Pictures in this post:

A vigorous boil!, inside the control panel (thanks Kal!), the control panel (no PIDs yet)

 

[Keith_O]

Very nice...
One day... One day.... Unfortunately, I am NOT an engineer. Fortunately for me, my Father in Law and Brother in law both are!

 

[Keith_O]

And Congrats btw!

 

[grathan]

That is quite a boil. Is that 5500w on 8 gallons?

I wonder if a boil like that will affect beers.

 

[HopHeavy]

Automation! Brother, I am very excited for you... and a little jealous.

 

[appleton11]

Yes it is grathan - I'm wondering the same thing. and it was actually only 7 gals as I could not do simple math at that point in the drinking / brewing day. lesson learned.

 

[BigFloyd]

Are you powering the 5500W element to 100%? That'll of course give you a very vigorous boil with 7 gallons in the kettle, but shouldn't cause flavor issues so long as you clean the element well between batches.

With as much nice work as you've done thus far, why not go the extra step and add a PID controller? Being able to set and maintain a precise mash temp is lovely. Being able to adjust the level of power going to the element during the boil is great as well. Once I get to boiling, I reduce the power percentage (via the PID) to about 60-65%. If I see the need to boil off more liquid to get my target gravity, I can easily adjust for that.