New house new brewing setup.
Every time I move I overhaul my brewing rig, largely pushing out previous choices made in the name of budget economy and going for the setup I really want one step at a time.
This most recent move I made the full leap into 100% electric brewing. I've been on a partial electric setup for two years, first with just an eHLT to heat strike and sparge water, then I moved up to a RIMS setup, and the HLT rapidly fell out of favor (bulky, generally unnecessary at a home brew scale) and I ran with just a RIMS mash tun and a propane fired boil kettle.
This latest move I decided to switch over to electric boiling. Getting propane is a pain in the butt, I've never been100% comfortable running a propane burner inside an open garage, and it seems pretty inefficient when you can see a lot of the heat rolling up the sides of the kettle, heating up the valve handles and melting the plastic coverings.
I swapped out the old PID controller for the eHLT in my panel which was just being used to read an RTD probe and acting as a fancy temperature display for an Auber EZBoil, and bought a HotRod from BrewHardware. I fitted out the HotRod with a 4500W 240V element from Electric Brewing and finally got around to putting the required 30A breaker into the sub-panel in the garage this weekend.
First impressions:
The EZBoil does exactly what it says on the tin. It took a few readings of the manual, and then actually using it to really get the hang of it but its actually pretty simple, and very effective. I calibrated the boiling temp against my thermapen and compensated for altitude, and it works very nicely. The adjustable warning beeps do exactly what they should and let you know when its time to pay attention and be ready with the FermCap, and the automatic timer is a great feature.
Boiling with electricity is very easy, and being able to adjust the power by numbers will be a great benefit for consistency. I also feel like I can more comfortably dial in what I'd consider a good rolling boil. Using propane it was always a crapshoot, and I'd guess that more often than not I was running at a high simmer rather than a decent boil.
The reasons I didn't go electric at first still stand, this was a reasonable cash outlay all together, even given that I built my own panel. The heat stick is not the best way of getting an element into a kettle (although it does work just fine I'd rather have a tri-clamp mounted element). You do need more than a basic familiarity with electricity and wiring to get access to the 240V circuit which you do need for boiling, or you've got to be prepared to buy a turn-key system and have an electrician pull a circuit for you.
All that being said I'm very happy with this new setup. It automates a part of the process which has always been a pain, with automatic boiling and shut-off at the end of the boil, and should also make for better batch to batch consistency with no additional effort on my part which is nice.
Every time I move I overhaul my brewing rig, largely pushing out previous choices made in the name of budget economy and going for the setup I really want one step at a time.
This most recent move I made the full leap into 100% electric brewing. I've been on a partial electric setup for two years, first with just an eHLT to heat strike and sparge water, then I moved up to a RIMS setup, and the HLT rapidly fell out of favor (bulky, generally unnecessary at a home brew scale) and I ran with just a RIMS mash tun and a propane fired boil kettle.
This latest move I decided to switch over to electric boiling. Getting propane is a pain in the butt, I've never been100% comfortable running a propane burner inside an open garage, and it seems pretty inefficient when you can see a lot of the heat rolling up the sides of the kettle, heating up the valve handles and melting the plastic coverings.
I swapped out the old PID controller for the eHLT in my panel which was just being used to read an RTD probe and acting as a fancy temperature display for an Auber EZBoil, and bought a HotRod from BrewHardware. I fitted out the HotRod with a 4500W 240V element from Electric Brewing and finally got around to putting the required 30A breaker into the sub-panel in the garage this weekend.
First impressions:
The EZBoil does exactly what it says on the tin. It took a few readings of the manual, and then actually using it to really get the hang of it but its actually pretty simple, and very effective. I calibrated the boiling temp against my thermapen and compensated for altitude, and it works very nicely. The adjustable warning beeps do exactly what they should and let you know when its time to pay attention and be ready with the FermCap, and the automatic timer is a great feature.
Boiling with electricity is very easy, and being able to adjust the power by numbers will be a great benefit for consistency. I also feel like I can more comfortably dial in what I'd consider a good rolling boil. Using propane it was always a crapshoot, and I'd guess that more often than not I was running at a high simmer rather than a decent boil.
The reasons I didn't go electric at first still stand, this was a reasonable cash outlay all together, even given that I built my own panel. The heat stick is not the best way of getting an element into a kettle (although it does work just fine I'd rather have a tri-clamp mounted element). You do need more than a basic familiarity with electricity and wiring to get access to the 240V circuit which you do need for boiling, or you've got to be prepared to buy a turn-key system and have an electrician pull a circuit for you.
All that being said I'm very happy with this new setup. It automates a part of the process which has always been a pain, with automatic boiling and shut-off at the end of the boil, and should also make for better batch to batch consistency with no additional effort on my part which is nice.
