Heat Stick questions

[chezhed]

I poured threw several long threads about the heat stick builds and confused the crap out of myself:fro:

I want to build one that will reduce my time to wort boil. I currently use propane only. I just want a booster to reduce time requirements. I would continue to use propane as it is pretty cheap around here when you refill a tank and don't do an exchange. ($10 for a full tank---you know the exchanges are not full, right? --- and I easily get 3-4 10-12 gallon brews from water heating to boiling wort....of course starting with 80 degree ground water helps )

I have a spare dryer outlet in my garage so I've got a great circuit to use. Dryer plugs/cords are extremely bulky and no where near the length I need. So I am looking for suggestions how to take advantage of this circuit and build the most powerful heat stick (wattage) possible. I often have 18 gallons of wort to boil.....
Do I simply replace the outlet with something friendlier and use a good 12 gauge wire? I have to go about 30 feet from outlet to brewstand so with that kind of voltage drop (I remember something about ohms) do I need to go to 10 gauge wire? What wattage could I do?

Thanks in advance.

 

[grathan]

Probably have to get a 220 gfci breaker for the box you have.

10 gauge would cover your needs. 30 amps 6000 watts.

Shooting for the biggest wattage might prove expensive and you may find boil-overs become an issue with no way to control heatstick temperature. If you had a closer 110v outlet you could build a nice 1500w stick for less than a third of the price.

 

[Hockeyman]

You could even make an adapter to separate the two 120v legs from the 240 outlet to get a closer 120v plug...

 

[chezhed]

You could even make an adapter to separate the two 120v legs from the 240 outlet to get a closer 120v plug...

I would need some instruction on that...got the concept, but not the know how. EE made me change my major. I like the idea of two sticks.

 

[raouliii]

You could even make an adapter to separate the two 120v legs from the 240 outlet to get a closer 120v plug...

Only safe if dryer plug is 4-prong already.

 

[Hockeyman]

For starters you'd need a 240v gfci breaker as grathan mentioned and a 4 prong outlet so you have a proper ground. When installing the gfci breaker pay attention to the colour wires that are the hots and neutral. Open your plug from the box in the garage. Note what terminals are the hots and neutral. Buy a dryer cord extension, a duplex 120v outlet, or two 120v outlets, depending if you want one outlet for each leg or two outlets per leg, a weatherproof box to house outlets, etc. Check continuity of the dryer extension to determine which wires are which. Wire the hot to outlet and neutral to each. Don't forget the ground. Check out this link for a visual of the plug wiring... Dryer cord info

Hope that helps...

 

[chezhed]

Thanks Hockeyman! I'll start with checking the outlet and the circuit breaker (which I suspect may be GFCI because of codes in area.....dang 110V circuits in house in certain areas are those damn static fault CI per code) in the box.

 

[brant740]

You can control the heat stick with a raspberry pi. They are cheap and DougEdey wrote a web based app already. Check out https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/strangebrew-elsinore-raspberry-pi-based-brewery-controller-396627/