Building an all electric system in Beijing

So I have been dragging pieces over to China for about 2 years and I am in the final stages of getting my 29 gallon system up and running. The control circuit is really giving me a hard time. I thought I had it all figured out, but after looking at some diagrams over on the Electric Brewing forum I am wondering if I missed something.

Our electric is 210v on a single leg. GFCI is non-existent here, so I am going to have to integrate all of the safety into the panel somehow. For now here is just a basic diagram showing how I intended to use the BCS controller and a 40 am relay to control the element. I noticed that the Electric Brewers circuit uses a door bell relay and I am not certain why this is included.

Once I know for sure this basic design is correct I can order up my switches, plugs, box etc and start cutting holes.

You could use the Home Depot spa panel GFCI.

Also, 4500w / 210v = 21.43 amps. You will be exceeding the capacity of your power feed and 20a switch. It might work, or it might trip the circuit breaker. More importantly, what gauge and type of wire is running from your breaker panel on this circuit? Worse than a nuisance breaker trip would be an electrical fire. If the wire is not adequately sized for a 4500w element, you should either step down to a lower wattage element or rewire the circuit with higher amperage wire.

I am running 10/3 outdoor cable to the elements. Crap, you would think I could figure amperage. I will have to bump that switch up, but more critical is the breaker in my apartment box.

The thing is, unless it's SPECIFICALLY designed for 210v, a 4500w 240v element won't run 4500w on 210v.

Assuming it's a 4500w element meant to run on 240v, 4500w = V^2 / R. R = 78.125mohm.

78.125mohm * 210v = 16.4 amps being drawn from a 210v outlet, which also only means 3445w, not 4500w. He'll be safe running it off of a 20A outlet, but just keep in mind with the reduced line voltage, your heating element won't be outputting as much heat.

You are absolutely correct. I shouldn't post so early before coffee.

To the OP, if that is not going to be sufficient power, then move up to a larger element.

You mention a "29 gallon" system. How much are you trying to boil w/ a single 3500Watt element?

The kettle is setup for dual elements, I was going with two of the 4500 watt Camco ULD's, The total kettle size is 113 liters. The mashtun is the same size, and I had planned on using a single 4500 watt in the RIMS tube I purchased from Brewer's Hardware.

TinTurtle said:

So I have been dragging pieces over to China for about 2 years

Click to expand...

So much irony!

I know, its all made here anyway. If I were fluent in Chinese (reading and writing) things would probably be different. Even so, its almost always more expensive to buy things that are manufactured in China - in China. By a factor of 3-ish. And the quality safety issue. Things made for export are almost always much higher quality.

Have you considered the Hosehead brewery controller? It will power two 4500w elements. I have the 50 amp controller and i love it. Corey really makes a solid product and his customer service is bar none. I live in Singapore so i know what you mean about sourcing products/items... https://brewtronix.com/