"Portable" E-Brew setup For work event?

[SPR-GRN]

So my boss approached me about having a work-sponsored brewing event in our office; we have no stove top so I had to flex my mental muscle to figure it out.. looking for comments on my proposal. We do have a sink available to us and a commercial ice maker as we have a nearly complete kitchen (so just stove top or oven).

Partial Mash, Partial boil (2.5 or 3 gallon).
Blonde Ale or other easy drinking quick fermenting ale I can do mostly extract with my specialty grains in a bag.

New equipment:
1800 watt single burner induction Cook top (Amazon)
1000 watt heat stick (Amazon)

My Equipment:
(2) 20 quart (5 gallon) Stainless pots with Lids
stainless spoon
immersion wort chiller
all my other brewing/fermenting crap (hydrometer, thermometer, bucket, siphon etc.)

Process:
Use burner and heat stick to get my mash water up to strike temp.
Remove the heat stick, reduce the burner to a maintenance temp to hold mash temp.
Mash my specialty grain bag, while that's happening use the heat stick to get the sparge water up to temp.
Sparge grains, use heat stick & burner to get up to boil temp.
boil as usual, rely on burner to maintain temp, use stick if necessary.
use immersion chiller to drop temp.
transfer, bring up volume, check gravity, pitch, airlock etc.

Do you all think the 1800 watt induction unit and the 1000 watt stick will be enough to perform this in a reasonable timeframe?

Notes:

1.) I may fore-go the immersion chiller and simply utilize the commercial ice maker to cool the beer; we have lots of ice.

2.) I was going to build a 2000 watt stick for personal use, but don't want to bring anything home wired to my office building, hence the 1000 watt unit purchase off of Amazon.

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[SPR-GRN]

bump!

pa-pa-pa-please make some comments guys, if you don't I might develop a stu-stu-stu-stutter.

 

[hustlebird]

Well, why are you doing this? (if I can ask?) Is your goal to teach people about it? Your method seems fine, although sparge water seems like an extra step. I'd probably do a partial boil with specialty grains. That way you just use your 2800 watts of power to bring the temp up to steep temps, allow steep, then boil! You could even use all that ice to chill the wort much faster and top you off to 5 gallons.

I know people will nay say the ice, and they're right, it could get infected. But it just seems like a lot simpler method, and I know I've done it before with success (how clean is YOUR ice maker? :cross

What is the 1000watt heater your talking about on amazon? If its the bucket heater you may get the weird looks of disapproval anyway (if thats why you don't want to use your heatstick). I know I always did when I busted it out. But, I'm not sure you could guarentee an outlet for a 2000 watt stick anyway.

Have you thought about making a Hefeweizen? If everyones going to be drinking it I find those are usually bigger crowd pleasers then a cream ale, but every crowd is different...

Hope this helps, just my $.02 Good luck!

 

[jCOSbrew]

check out some of the 2 to 3 gallon eBIAB setups.
I think you will be fine with the 1800W cooktop and without the heat stick for partial boil.

Also make sure your stock pot is "compatible" w/ induction. If your stainless pots are magnetic they should work.

 

[lewdog50]

just do a straight extract batch partial boil with specialty grains. Easiest process to demo, easiest questions to answer, easiest way to get people interesting in brewing.

 

[rcbishop]

This might be off topic (for the electric forum), but if you're going to buy new stuff just for this, why not just use propane?

 

[SPR-GRN]

Well, why are you doing this? (if I can ask?) Is your goal to teach people about it? Your method seems fine, although sparge water seems like an extra step. I'd probably do a partial boil with specialty grains. That way you just use your 2800 watts of power to bring the temp up to steep temps, allow steep, then boil! You could even use all that ice to chill the wort much faster and top you off to 5 gallons.

I know people will nay say the ice, and they're right, it could get infected. But it just seems like a lot simpler method, and I know I've done it before with success (how clean is YOUR ice maker? :cross

What is the 1000watt heater your talking about on amazon? If its the bucket heater you may get the weird looks of disapproval anyway (if thats why you don't want to use your heatstick). I know I always did when I busted it out. But, I'm not sure you could guarentee an outlet for a 2000 watt stick anyway.

Have you thought about making a Hefeweizen? If everyones going to be drinking it I find those are usually bigger crowd pleasers then a cream ale, but every crowd is different...

Hope this helps, just my $.02 Good luck!

The goal is to teach people at work how to brew.
The heat stick is a bucket heater.
I'm pretty much going to let them decided what I/we make, I'll give them a few options - Wheat, Blonde, Hefeweizen, etc. and see what they want to make.

check out some of the 2 to 3 gallon eBIAB setups.
I think you will be fine with the 1800W cooktop and without the heat stick for partial boil.

Also make sure your stock pot is "compatible" w/ induction. If your stainless pots are magnetic they should work.

yes, my SS pots are magnetic.

just do a straight extract batch partial boil with specialty grains. Easiest process to demo, easiest questions to answer, easiest way to get people interesting in brewing.

I've never done a straight extract batch, I started out partial mash; hence the reason I wanted to start with PM; there is a guy in my office who does extract I can talk to him about it, might be an option.

This might be off topic (for the electric forum), but if you're going to buy new stuff just for this, why not just use propane?

I work in an office building in a city, we don't have an outdoor space to use, so I'd have to brew indoors; hence the burner and heat stick.

Also I won't be paying for the equipment or ingredients, the company will be covering all costs, so I was also looking for items that can be re-utilized at a later date in our office kitchen.

Thanks for the comments, I'll do a little more research and try to decide whether I can get away with just the burner, but I don't want to have a dozen people hanging around watching water heat up for an hour before I/we can do anything with it.