Poll-->Best Brewery Power Source

[lschiavo]

Choose what you believe is the best. Choose not what you have now but what you would have if everything was right with the world.

[OTHER]
If you burn wood, tell us about it. If you use solar power, tell us about it. If you do "other", tell us about it.

Please vote.
Thank you very much.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Electric hands down.

 

[stevehaun]

Electric!

 

[Homercidal]

Electric! (At least once I finish building my electric system!)

Cheaper than almost anything except wood. Easy to control. Quiet. Doesn't tend to run out in the middle of brewing.

If I had a pipe to the garage, I'd consider NG a close second.

 

[lschiavo]

Not a ton of responses but much more one sided than I would have thought.

 

[kh54s10]

I want to move inside so electric would be the way to go. If I had solar that would be even better. Right now it is propane.

 

[abrew2u]

Was on propane,now on nat gas with a electric rims tube . Wish I could be all electric

 

[petrolSpice]

Propane, only because I don't have 240V in my house.

 

[Transamguy77]

Propane, wish I had NG and no desire for electric.

 

[gromitdj]

I read the poll as "what do you believe to be the best source" rather than "what is your current source" so, I voted electric. I think it seems to be the easiest to incorporate either partial or full automation.

For me, Natural Gas would probably be the cheapest to operate.

 

[Magnus314]

Electric.

And isn't "Solar" also electric? If not, like solar cookers or something, somebody please clue me in to how you're doing it.

 

[Paps]

I used to use LP.
I'm now on electric.
Without question the electric is better between the two.
1-cheaper
2-not affected by wind/rain/snow/hurricane as it's inside.
3-doesn't `run out` mid boil like LP can(does)
4-faster to hit intended temps
Just my 2 cents.

 

[Homercidal]

Electric.

And isn't "Solar" also electric? If not, like solar cookers or something, somebody please clue me in to how you're doing it.

If you are asking about the best SOURCE, then solar would be a source of electricity.

Someone might be willing to build a solar concentrator and try brewing with that, but then you are forced to brew during the day on sunny days.

 

[lschiavo]

I suppose solar would need to be electric but would be off the grid so I would consider it "other".

I'd like to see how anyone is brewing solar.

 

[wisconsinitebrewer]

Use to be propane, made the switch to electric....
will never look back

 

[wilserbrewer]

Propane, only because I don't have 240V in my house.

2 circuits at 120v works pretty darn well up to 10 gallon batches

 

[RedlegEd]

2 circuits at 120v works pretty darn well up to 10 gallon batches

+1^^^ this! I use a single 120V 20A circuit in the garage. It takes a little longer to heat up, but I still get a good boil (just not a real high boil off rate.) I bought a Grainfather, but I still have my old 10 gal EBAIB pot, so I can use (and do,) both. Ed

 

[jcav]

Electric all the way for me! Most efficient use of energy to, no wasted btu's like when using gas burners. All the energy from the ripple element goes right into heating the water in HLT, or boiling the wort. It's quiet, you can brew indoors or out, and with pids and temp probes you have excellent control. Gotta love it!

John

 

[iijakii]

I feel like it's not really much of a comparison if we're going by "best". Electric is quiet, efficient, able to brew indoors, potential automation etc. Also I havent brewed on propane in probably 6 years but I recall having to scrub my pot because wort would scortch to the bottom sometimes. Not a big deal but that means even cleaning is easier for me on electric.

I could see an argument being made about a plumbed natural gas burner being a better option for some people if you take into consider startup costs, never worrying about a contactor dying or what not, etc. But as for "best" I feel electric winds hands down.

 

[GHBWNY]

Still do some brewing stovetop (strike water and sparge), so natural gas along with propane burner. Both are cheaper boil-to-boil in our consumer area.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Still do some brewing stovetop (strike water and sparge), so natural gas along with propane burner. Both are cheaper boil-to-boil in our consumer area.

I fail to understand how propane or NG could be cheaper from an energy use comparison using an electric immersion element?

Unless one were to factor the heat losses with NG as home supplemental home heating. Sure electric power is more expensive, but it is transferred to the wort very efficiently with an immersion element.

Perhaps your referring to an electric stove IDK?

 

[JimWard]

i fail to understand why you are so happy that the heat transfer from an electric element to water is more "efficient" than a flame on the bottom of a pot??? Seems like an irrelevant point to me...

it is all about cost - how much does it cost to boil 10 gallons of wort for an hour or so??? here in southern California, i did the math and the increase in cost for electric brewing was somewhere around 8-12 dollars per batch (for me - your electric rate could be different).

I went with NG and have observed the cost to be nearly negligible. Granted, if electricity were cheaper, i do absolutely concede that using Electric has many advantages - quiet, less waste heat and no issue with carbon monoxide. Creating an electric brew rig i think is somewhat more expensive and risky if you do not absolutely know what you are doing. That said, i wish i could go electric, but my sensibilities with cost pushed me to NG.

so for me in Southern California - it is NG.

Cheers!

Jim

 

[lschiavo]

i fail to understand why you are so happy that the heat transfer from an electric element to water is more "efficient" than a flame on the bottom of a pot??? Seems like an irrelevant point to me...

it is all about cost - how much does it cost to boil 10 gallons of wort for an hour or so??? here in southern California, i did the math and the increase in cost for electric brewing was somewhere around 8-12 dollars per batch (for me - your electric rate could be different).

I went with NG and have observed the cost to be nearly negligible. Granted, if electricity were cheaper, i do absolutely concede that using Electric has many advantages - quiet, less waste heat and no issue with carbon monoxide. Creating an electric brew rig i think is somewhat more expensive and risky if you do not absolutely know what you are doing. That said, i wish i could go electric, but my sensibilities with cost pushed me to NG.

so for me in Southern California - it is NG.



Cheers!

Jim

What are you paying for electricity?

 

[mikescooling]

I don't know anyone who went electric and then went back to brewing with gas. I don't think I'd still be brewing (as much) if I hadn't started using electric

 

[iijakii]

i fail to understand why you are so happy that the heat transfer from an electric element to water is more "efficient" than a flame on the bottom of a pot??? Seems like an irrelevant point to me...

Think of how hot the area around your burner is. That's a lot of energy not going into the pot. I've heard numbers before that half the heat from a burner is lost to atmosphere. Not sure if that 50% is true or not, but suffice to say it's nowhere near as efficient as an immersed element.

 

[gromitdj]

What are you paying for electricity?

I'm in Orange County, just north of him, and worst case scenario is approx. 35 cents a KwH. I figured a while ago that if I ran a 5500 Watt element for 2 hours @ 100% it might cost me approx. $3.50.

 

[Bassman2003]

We are lucky in Texas. My electricity rate is under 10 cents per KWH. Even though the price of natural gas is at rock bottom the price of those Blue Rhino tanks have only increased to $17-$19 a pop. No way I would go back to using anything but electric. Moving to an induction approach now. Will be interesting to see if there are any differences in the beer without having an element in there burning away.

 

[lschiavo]

I'm in Orange County, just north of him, and worst case scenario is approx. 35 cents a KwH. I figured a while ago that if I ran a 5500 Watt element for 2 hours @ 100% it might cost me approx. $3.50.

That is more than double my electric rate so I guess I'm lucky here. That's probably not a bad approximation of a brew day usage though. IIRC, I thought I was in that ballpark when I hooked up a power meter a while back.

 

[gromitdj]

For me, it's a tiered service. So, the more I use the more I pay per KwH. I live in a small house, and I am rarely in the 1st or 2nd tiers. Which are a bit cheaper. To venture a guess, they are 17 and 24 cents per KwH.

 

[Transamguy77]

Over the years I have read a lot about electric and it never really appealed to me, the up front costs seem like a lot and propane for me is simple, I like the idea of simple.

So I'm not looking to start a debate but just trying to understand more why electric is so much better. Now I just moved from Pa to Ca and when I was in Pa I loved to brew when it was cold out and now the weather here is a bit more consistent and no where near as cold.

I brew on average every other week and I spend about $200 a year on propane, from what I have read the costs for electric are $1500-2000 so it would take me 7-10 years to recoup that cost and I would still be using electric at whatever that cost is (someone posted about 3.50 a batch), I spend $8 a 10 gallon batch now so I would only be saving $4.50, so how do the benifits of electric outweigh other gases?

This may not be the thread to post this but since most have posted that electric is better I'd like the input from you guys.