Electrical Costs for a Normal Brew Day

[hunter306]

So, How much does it cost to run our electric breweries?

Recently, the power company installed these fancy new smart meters that let us do hour-by-hour tracking of our home energy use. Obviously, being a bit of a geek, I was curious what our rough energy use and cost was for a standard Brewday (usually 10gal out of the fermenter).

Here's what I came up with (These are fairly rough calculations for the sake of simplicity).

Baseline Energy Use vs. Brewdays:

From this, we learn a few things. First, on an average day*, we're using about 22kw/h of power for everyday stuff. TV, Fans, Lights, Microwave, Refrigerator etc. On a Brewday, the energy usage increases about 43kw/h of power total.

*NOTE: You'll have to excuse the spikes to around 30kw/h on this graphic before the first brewday, these were days where we were testing the Brewing system (we omitted these from the normal use baseline).

Knowing this, we can assume that our standard brew day consumes about 21kw/h.

An hour-by-hour Brewday Breakdown looks like this:

Brewday 1:

Starting to fire the HLT around 2pm, Heating Strike Water and Mashing in around 3pm, and then Boiling around 7pm. (Total process time about 6.5hrs)

NOTE: The first Brewday used a bit more power than our estimated normal because we were pretty slow in our processes as is shown in the graphic.

Brewday 2:

Starting to fire the HLT around 10:30am, Heating Strike Water and Mashing around 11:30am, and boiling around 3pm. (Total Process time about 5hrs)

Finally the costs:
With that, we can figure what it costs (roughly) in dollars to run the system for a full batch from cold water to wort into the fermenter.

Total Power Used: 21kw/h
Cost per kw/h (we're on a tiered system, but we'll use an avg): 7.6 cents
Additional costs per kw/h (fees, distribution, etc): 5.3 cents
Actual kw/h cost: 12.9 cents

Which Means we spend about $2.71 per Brewday in power cost. **This does not include the flat fees that we pay each month to keep the electrical service active, because we would have the service regardless of our brewery.

Looking at this, you certainly can't argue too much with the power costs of running the 5500w 30amp system, with the 2 pumps active! I just quickly ran through this, after having a discussion with my co-brewer (brother) about what it was costing to fire the system each time we got together.

 

[atoughram]

Nice! and I thought my electricity was expensive... Your's is a bit higher! We've got the smart meters too - I should look closer, I'll bet it's similiar - Assume 10gal batches?

 

[hunter306]

Yup, 10-10.5 gallons out to the fermenter, I think I put that in there somehwere

 

[sablesurfer]

Why aren't you brewing at 4AM?? I mean no time to sleep man! LOL.

Very interesting stuff, good to know. I run a much smaller electric system with only a 2000w element, so nice to see it isn't my brewing that is breaking the bank.

(Now the GF's inside greenhouse to start seedlings on the other hand....)

 

[hunter306]

I'm not ruling brewing at 4am out... but most of the time, we try and coordinate a morning->early afternoon brew cycle. Our tiered pricing isn't based on time either, so no major benefits of brewing in off-peak hours for me.

Glad it was useful, we were originally speculating 7 dollars a Brewday, so seeing it under 3 dollars is pretty awesome.

Certainly beats filling my propane tanks every few brews!

 

[riverbeer]

By comparison I was using a turkey fryer before converting to electric.
I paid $20.00 for 20lbs propane and used about 12lbs on a 5 Gal boil, on a calm warm day, more when it's not.
I'm guessing for 10 Gal. boil it would probably add a couple more lbs of propane. So you're looking at $15.00 per boil with propane.
If you boil just once a month electric will save you about $150.00 a year.
Wow , I just realized I paid for my controller in 6 months by converting and now it's saving me $$$$.
For those of you considering converting, now you have no excuse not , if you are able. There are a lot of valuable resources and many very knowledgeable
people on this site who are more than happy help you with a conversion.
Do your research, there are many different ideas on conversion.
Remember, you must have at least a basic understanding of electricity, if you don't ,take some time to learn electricity, before going at it. It's really pretty simple. If you know an electrician ask em , for a case of beer every now and then ,I bet he'll be happy to help. I know a guy that called electricians around town and asked if someone would be interested in helping him, he found somebody. He now has a beautiful system.
#1 RULE: SAFETY FIRST. Don't shortcut on safety
Be careful and have fun. Riverbeer

 

[kal]

Your price is about the same (I also brew to get 10 gallon in the kegs):

It costs me about $1.60 in electricity to brew 10 gallons of beer, assuming I brew during peak electrical rates ($0.12/kWh). This cost do not include taxes, delivery charges, or other fees. If I add those in it roughly goes up to what you mentioned.

If I brew on the weekends or evenings when the rate is half the peak rate, the cost is about $0.80 (plus the fees).

Note that $0.12/kWh also happens to be the average US national rate so most US brewers should expect similar costs.

As most people would assume, most of the cost comes from powering the heating elements. I use one 5500W element in the both the Hot Liquor Tank and Boil Kettle to brew 10 gallons of beer. The heating elements are used as follows:

- Heat strike water: 45 minutes at 100% power usage = (45 / 60) * 1 * (5500 / 1000) * $0.12 = $0.50
- Mash: 90 minute mash at 5% power usage = (90 / 60) * 0.05 * (5500 / 1000) * $0.12 = $0.05
- Mash-out: 20 minutes at 100% power usage = (20 / 60) * 1 * (5500 / 1000) * $0.12 = $0.22
- Sparge: Heating elements not used, minimal power usage.
- Bring to boil: 23 minutes at 100% power usage = (23 / 60) * 1 * (5500 / 1000) * $0.12 = $0.25
- Boil: 60 minutes at 85% power usage = (60 / 60) * 0.85 * (5500 / 1000) * $0.12 = $0.56
- Chill: Heating elements not used, minimal power usage.

While the pumps and the control panel are run for many hours throughout the brew day, they only add a few pennies to the overall cost given their extremely low power consumption.

Kal

 

[bad coffee]

Do you guys also figure in the laptop(Beer tools/promash/Beersmith,) stereo (GOTTA have brew tunes,) and microwave (brew day burritos!) in your calculations?

The savings over propane was the primary reason I switched. Figuring NYC rates, I was paying about $5 a brew session. Now in MI, it's about $3.

 

[dyqik]

Nice use of the smart meter, and it's good to see this kind of figure (for when I try to justify the power/fuel cost of brewing to the SO), but I have one small point that might mean that you are using less power than you worked out above.

It looks like you are brewing on the weekends, and that your baseline power load is higher than in the week on the other non-brewing weekends, so you should consider if this is making your brewing look a little more power hungry than it actually is. From the limited data (and assuming you weren't testing brewing related things on the other weekends), I'd put the power consumption of the brew day a bit lower at around 16-19 kWh, by taking the baselines for each brew day from the same day in other weeks.

For comparison, I'm on propane doing 6 gallon batches (60-90 min boils), and I got 4-5 batches from my first 15lb exchange cylinder on a camp chef burner, at about $23 for an exchange (once I factor in driving to get the cylinder, etc.). I do assist the sparge water heating with a 1000W bucket heater. So I figure $5 in propane, and around 2 kWh in electricity (20 cents) per batch so far. Double that for 10 gal batches I guess.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Yes, it's nice to save money on energy usage, but it's a lot nicer to save money on gas and saving time not going to the supermarket or hardware store to get yet another propane tank. Tedious.

Surprisingly, I haven't noticed any appreciable difference in my electric bill after starting to use my electric brewery (2 5500w elements running simultaneously, 2 pumps, 8" inline fan, extra lights and stereo).

Good work on the writeup!

 

[hunter306]

It looks like you are brewing on the weekends, and that your baseline power load is higher than in the week on the other non-brewing weekends, so you should consider if this is making your brewing look a little more power hungry than it actually is. From the limited data (and assuming you weren't testing brewing related things on the other weekends), I'd put the power consumption of the brew day a bit lower at around 16-19 kWh, by taking the baselines for each brew day from the same day in other weeks.

You're correct. My initial run down didn't figure in the increase in baseline power consumption for the weekends (which definitely makes brewing look more power hungry). I ran through the calculations real quick yesterday so I didn't notice this until later.

We also haven't had the meter long enough to get a good read on our weekend usage/compared to weekdays. I'll have to update in the next month with a better (more accurate) read on what we're using. Right now we're on track to brew every two weeks if the pipeline permits.

Thanks for the thoughts!

 

[Hello]

This is super cool. Thanks for putting this out there.
I feel that not owning a microwave though, I have missed out on some serious brew day burritos.

 

[kal]

Surprisingly, I haven't noticed any appreciable difference in my electric bill after starting to use my electric brewery...

At only $2-3 per batch, and only brewing 1-2 times/month, it's no surprise that you don't notice it on your bill. It would be fairly negligible on most people's monthly statements.

Kal

 

[hawaiibrewer]

So, How much does it cost to run our electric breweries?

Recently, the power company installed these fancy new smart meters that let us do hour-by-hour tracking of our home energy use. Obviously, being a bit of a geek, I was curious what our rough energy use and cost was for a standard Brewday (usually 10gal out of the fermenter).

Here's what I came up with (These are fairly rough calculations for the sake of simplicity).

Baseline Energy Use vs. Brewdays:

From this, we learn a few things. First, on an average day*, we're using about 22kw/h of power for everyday stuff. TV, Fans, Lights, Microwave, Refrigerator etc. On a Brewday, the energy usage increases about 43kw/h of power total.

*NOTE: You'll have to excuse the spikes to around 30kw/h on this graphic before the first brewday, these were days where we were testing the Brewing system (we omitted these from the normal use baseline).

Knowing this, we can assume that our standard brew day consumes about 21kw/h.

An hour-by-hour Brewday Breakdown looks like this:

Brewday 1:

Starting to fire the HLT around 2pm, Heating Strike Water and Mashing in around 3pm, and then Boiling around 7pm. (Total process time about 6.5hrs)

NOTE: The first Brewday used a bit more power than our estimated normal because we were pretty slow in our processes as is shown in the graphic.

Brewday 2:

Starting to fire the HLT around 10:30am, Heating Strike Water and Mashing around 11:30am, and boiling around 3pm. (Total Process time about 5hrs)

Finally the costs:
With that, we can figure what it costs (roughly) in dollars to run the system for a full batch from cold water to wort into the fermenter.

Total Power Used: 21kw/h
Cost per kw/h (we're on a tiered system, but we'll use an avg): 7.6 cents
Additional costs per kw/h (fees, distribution, etc): 5.3 cents
Actual kw/h cost: 12.9 cents

Which Means we spend about $2.71 per Brewday in power cost. **This does not include the flat fees that we pay each month to keep the electrical service active, because we would have the service regardless of our brewery.

Looking at this, you certainly can't argue too much with the power costs of running the 5500w 30amp system, with the 2 pumps active! I just quickly ran through this, after having a discussion with my co-brewer (brother) about what it was costing to fire the system each time we got together.

Great information, just what I was looking for as I was thinking about going electric and had no idea what amount of kW a brew day might require. Our electric rates here in Hawaii max out to be about $.045/ kW once I figure all the "add ins and sur charges". I gave up lagering for the cost issue also since running a chiller was high. It costs me about $4/ brew for propane....and I can brew outside year round...so I'll save the electric idea for when/if we move back to the mainland. Again, many mahalo for your calcs.

 

[passedpawn]

My own calculations. These are theoretical - I don't have one of those fancy meters (I don't think, but I'm going to check now). This does not include the pump running (I did this a long time ago, don't remember why I didn't include that).

[edit] Also didn't include heating sparge water. Derp. Anyway, looks like $2 is a good estimate per batch. Not having running out of propane mid-batch: priceless.