Looking to move into Electric HERMS for mash circ.. Single phase queation...

[Rushman]

Looking at options for progressing in my hobby. I have read 110 is not enough power to heat a 10 gallon batch effectively. Here is my question... without having to do a major upgrade to get a 240 outlet in a filled out house panel...

If I build a 3 keggle system with gas fired boil kettle, a mash ton fed by a HERMS HLT keggle with a single phase element... . If I fill the HLT with near strike temp water from my boil kettle first, is the smaller element enough to do step mash and mash-out temp increases? Responsive enough?

Is a single phase feed source to a control panel to run a single element pid/ssr and 2 March pumps enough?

Thank you in advance. I am only long range planning now...

RUSHMAN

 

[stevehaun]

If you brew a typical 10 gallon batch:
20 pounds of grain at 1.5 quarts/pound = about 7.5 gallons of water
If you have 7.5 gallons in your HLT, you will be heating about 15 gallons of liquid (excluding grain to simplify calculations).
If you have an insulated mash tun and a 2000 watt element (max on a 20 amp circuit), you will be able to increase temp by about 0.86 degrees/min. In reality (adding in the grain, various temp losses, pump flows, etc), you will be lucky to get 0.5 degrees/min. 15 amp circuit and 1500 watt element would be significantly slower yet.

So, the short answer is you could use a 120 vac system to maintain mash temps but not do step mashes or a mash out.