Should I be happy.

[Brewing1976]

Can’t wait to use it. How many like using this?

 

[Jtvann]

It's what I upgraded to before going electric. Gets the job done

 

[Brewing1976]

It's what I upgraded to before going electric. Gets the job done

How do like doing electric? I was looking at them.

 

[Jtvann]

Wish I had started off with electric. I'll never go back.

 

[day_trippr]

The Hellfire is a great burner, though it may be overkill for most. I brew with a pair of its predecessor Floor Burners and with 10 gallon batches I rarely use more than half the available power - which is roughly half of the Hellfire max output.

Both share the best features: all SS paint-free construction that will likely out-live the original owner...

Cheers!

 

[Brewing1976]

Wish I had started off with electric. I'll never go back.

Why do like? I’m thinking about doing it next. Do you extract, BIAB or all grain with it?

 

[Jtvann]

All grain. Much more control. I can brew indoors. Don't have to go get propane tanks. Dont have to worry about a propane tank running dry on me. It's cheaper to pay a power bill than buy propane. More efficient. Faster.

Probably should have made that into a list, but you get the drift.

 

[Iseneye]

I've had one for around 3 or 4 years (can't remember). If you can't go electric then this is a great burner. I do really low boils (more of a simmer) so it is easy to keep the flame low. I'm dreaming of electric one day...

 

[TallDan]

All grain. Much more control. I can brew indoors. Don't have to go get propane tanks. Dont have to worry about a propane tank running dry on me. It's cheaper to pay a power bill than buy propane. More efficient. Faster.

Probably should have made that into a list, but you get the drift.

FWIW, I have a blichmann floor burner running on natural gas. Don't have to go get propane tanks, don't worry about propane tanks running dry, cheaper to pay the gas bill than buy propane, more efficient, is as fast as it can be for my batch size, and while indoors would be nice in the winter, I prefer the patio to the basement most of the year.

 

[mongoose33]

The Hellfire is a monster. I can't believe how much faster it is than my previous burner. You can get water or wort to a boil very fast, and if saving time is important to you, then this will help. A lot.

I brewed in my garage with this for...maybe 35 batches. Blichmann has about 89 warnings about not using the hellfire indoors, or under an awning, or a carport, or <gasp> in a garage. I'm sure it can torch off a building in 2 minutes if you're not paying attention to it.

Well, I paid attention, so much so that I wouldn't leave it alone while burning. If I had to visit the little boy's room I'd ask my wife to watch it. Maybe foolish, possibly not, but I was darned careful with it. You should be, too, if you're at all tempted to use it in a way they warn against.

It's a helluva burner.

*******

You asked about what makes electric better. One thing is I can leave the system alone while heating without concern about burning down the building, which I would never do with the hellfire. I can also brew indoors in winter without having to exhaust steam out a window via box fan and opening the service door for makeup air and having to heat that as it comes in. Well, you don't have to heat the makeup air but I don't like brewing in 15-degree weather....

You can also control electric better.

When I went to electric, it cost me probably....well, somewhere between $1200 and $1500. A big cost was running 240-v electricity to the garage. Just the 30-amp ground-fault circuit breaker cost me $103. The electrician is a friend of mine, I did most of running the wiring, building wiring chases, and so on--he handled hooking it all up in the main box and in the sub panel I have in the garage.

Then there was the control panel I built. That cost....about $400. It was a DIY kit from Auber Instruments. I also added a 5500-watt element, had Spike brewing weld a couple Tri-Clamp ports on my kettle...then I added a RIMS system from BrewHardware, that cost around $300. The connection cords for the panel, element, and RIMS were probably $75-100.

It's nice, it's fun, I'm broke.

There are ways to do it much less expensively. If you already have 240-v power, that's a huge leg up. You can get a cheap controller (Stilldragon) for about $50.

But in the meantime...you're going to like that Hellfire.

BTW, a note on strike water with the Hellfire. It is SO hot that it'll actually heat up the kettle supports to cherry red. What I found is that when I reached my strike temp and turned off the burner there was enough retained heat that the temp rose a few degrees more. I learned to cut it off about 4 degrees short of my desired temp, then waited for it to drift up to it. Took a couple minutes for that to happen.

 

[Brewing1976]

All you guys posting about electric what size kettle do you have and what make?

 

[mongoose33]

All you guys posting about electric what size kettle do you have and what make?

I have a Spike 10-gallon and a Bayou Classic 20-gallon. I have a tri-clover port on each of them for the heating element. With the Spike brewing, I had Spike Brewing weld tri-clover ports on the kettle. For the Bayou Classic, I used the weldless triclover bulkhead from brewhardware.com.

It depends on what you think you're going to do batch-wise in the future. I wanted to be able to do 10-gallon batches so the larger one was required. But in the end, it doesn't matter that much (so long as, IMO, it's stainless steel and not aluminum).

********

BTW, I don't know if I would buy the Bayou Classic if I were to buy it new. Probably not. I just happened to stumble across a guy selling off his brewing equipment and I couldn't resist it: for $275 I got two--2!--20-gallon Bayou Classic kettles, both with dial thermometers and ball valves (though I replaced the valves), one with a false bottom for use as a mash tun, a Blichmann Therminator plate chiller, two MkII pump (one with stainless head), and some hoses and fittings. I had to replace some bulkheads and added good ball valves and needed some fittings, but considering.... I'm going to sell the Therminator (looks new, works great), and one or both of the pumps.

But with all that stuff, I figured I'd never get into brewing 10-gallon batches cheaper than that. I finally brewed with the 10-gallon system 8 days ago, and it all worked as it was supposed to.

 

[Brewing1976]

I have a Spike 10-gallon and a Bayou Classic 20-gallon. I have a tri-clover port on each of them for the heating element. With the Spike brewing, I had Spike Brewing weld tri-clover ports on the kettle. For the Bayou Classic, I used the weldless triclover bulkhead from brewhardware.com.

It depends on what you think you're going to do batch-wise in the future. I wanted to be able to do 10-gallon batches so the larger one was required. But in the end, it doesn't matter that much (so long as, IMO, it's stainless steel and not aluminum).

********

BTW, I don't know if I would buy the Bayou Classic if I were to buy it new. Probably not. I just happened to stumble across a guy selling off his brewing equipment and I couldn't resist it: for $275 I got two--2!--20-gallon Bayou Classic kettles, both with dial thermometers and ball valves (though I replaced the valves), one with a false bottom for use as a mash tun, a Blichmann Therminator plate chiller, two MkII pump (one with stainless head), and some hoses and fittings. I had to replace some bulkheads and added good ball valves and needed some fittings, but considering.... I'm going to sell the Therminator (looks new, works great), and one or both of the pumps.

But with all that stuff, I figured I'd never get into brewing 10-gallon batches cheaper than that. I finally brewed with the 10-gallon system 8 days ago, and it all worked as it was supposed to.

So you had heating element installed

 

[mongoose33]

So you had heating element installed

No. I installed it. I had the port added to the spike (they welded it on there, which normally I prefer), and had the holes drilled into the bayou kettle by a local shop. Then I added the tri-clover port, and then installed the heating element using a high-temp silicone gasket and a tri-clover clamp.

Here's the element:

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/element5500_ripple_tc.htm

 

[NewJersey]

I have one i used before going electric. I still have it! Kinda just in case and for frying our Thanksgiving turkey every year.

 

[mongoose33]

I have one i used before going electric. I still have it! Kinda just in case and for frying our Thanksgiving turkey every year.

I still have mine. I've thought about selling it but I can't quite pull the trigger for some reason.

 

[Br3w4u]

To answer your original question, no you should not be happy, be depressed like everyone else you weirdo!

 

[Brewing1976]

I’m using the burner for the first time. Doing a 5 gallon boil man does this making easy. Heck of a lot better then using a stove top