Newbie question

[Bigfish713]

Looking into going electric all grain and have a question. I am going to purchase a new brew pot and don't have time to build a complete e brew system going to pick up parts as I go. My question is how can I control the element I am going to install in my kettle besides plugging and unplugging it to heat water and to boil? I have a round cooler I plan to mash in then drain to another cooler to keep the temp of the wort up while I batch sparge into boil kettle. Any cheap way to control the element?
Looking at a 5500w 240v element and thinking of pulling power from my kitchen stove if that is possible

 

[HumulusHead]

You could theoretically do it cheap. At least what I would consider cheap. I started out with the same goal. It got more expensive as my design went on ha

But anyways. What you essentially need is a PID that controls the heating element. The PID will turn on and off the element to hold a set temp.

That's the gist of it, but there are many small details that go along with it.

But if you had one PID and one element I bet you could do a really simple cheap system for a couple hundred bucks.

Check out my electric build thread. I'm currently building one. You can see as time went on how I changed my mind a million times and added subtracted items. But there is also a lot of good information within it. I was absolutely clueless when I started my build. Now less clueless ha

 

[BigFloppy]

cheapest way to realistically control the element would be SSVR

 

[madscientist451]

Even cheaper would be to add a temperature control to one of the burners on your stove:

http://tim.cexx.org/?p=1092