One step closer to all electric.

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Orfy

For the love of beer!
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I'm still not sure if I want to go 100 3 barrel electric.
I'm playing with it at the moment to see which I preffer.

I may mix and match or keep the 2 set ups.

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Orfy,

If I were going to have a 3 barrel brew system, I also have the 100 liter one as a pilot scale brewery - call it a lab scale brew system to back up the big one, and minimize the risk of expensive failures....

But, I gotta ask, are you on your way to commercial brewing? If not, why have the 3 bbl system?
 
Looks nice Orfy!

By quick I mean, like the last post, 'fast' - do they heat the water up fast?

Is there an element sticking up through the pot or is it smooth all the way around?

depends on the size of the element. 5500W is pretty respectable I can get 11 gallons up to a boil from room temp in about 50 minutes. Regular 5 gallon batches coming from the MLT boil in no time.
 
my mistake. 3 vessel not barrel.
Yes they are 30l not the size of my keggles but good enough for 23l batches.
I'm still configuring things and waiting for the 3rd vessel and a pump.




(I do have some cash tied up in a commercial set up but it's a year behind schedule!)
 
Wow, downside? Is it quick?

Down Side?
More equipment. Even If I stick with it I'm not getting rid of the keggles.

Quick?
It's not slower. I'm stuck with a minimum mash and boil time.

They are lighter when empty but they need to live indoors.

I'm thinkng of trying the boil in the bag method with them.
 
3kW element eh? I am not familiar with England's electrical code, what kind of circuit are you running that element on?
 
Have you done any cost analysis? Is electric cheaper than propane or just more convenient and safe for indoors?

I was curious about cost also (posted this in another thread). I did a few quick calcs and came up with this. Just adjust for your costs. Anyone know what the efficiency to the kettle would be with gas?

1 pound of propane = 22,000 BTU = about $1 per pound.

22,000 BTU = 6.45kWH @ about $0.11/kWH = about $0.71.

Also an electrical element is 100% efficient. I am sure a burner is no where near that. So, I would guess electrical brewing would be about half the energy cost of propane. Also, no trips to refill cylinders.
 
I use a couple of kettle elements drilled into a 70L stock pot, the downside I would say is having a lot of cables trailing about, the need for a switch box etc. I would say it takes me about 20 minutes to get a decent rolling boil from mash temperature (10 gallon batch). Pots were about £30 off ebay and elements are only a few pounds each.

A big plus for me is that you can set your HLT on a timer switch so you can have 80C water ready for brewing with first thing in the morning.

This is a quick vid of my sparge, you can see the kettle elements at the end. Obviously can't turn them on until they're submerged.

 
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Quick? What do you mean?

I wanted electric because I wanted to brew indoors and didn't want to have to deal with propane and/or natural gas indoors. The other benefit is the ability to have a HERMS, which I couldn't easily do with propane.


Ok, I admit it: I have no idea what HERMS means. Will somebody please educate this old propane brewer?
 
Heat Exchange Recirculation Mashing System (or something similar).

Refers to the system of mashing by recirculating the wort through a heat exchanger which is controlled with a PID, either to maintain a specific mash temp or to conduct a step mash.
 
Its not bad to clean. I just hook up my hot water feed connection to one end of the herms coil, and hold a 2 quart pitcher up to the outlet. usually flush it with a gallon of 100 degree hot water.

no fuss, no muss.

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I wasn't sure, but I thought it was something like that. Sounds like just one more thing to clean when brewday is done.

Not at all. You pump your sparge water through it during the sparge. Not a single extra step
 
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