Gas to electric conversion

[chefgage]

I had a bit of time spare at the weekend i thought i would convert my boiler from gas to electric. The reason for this is i currently mash in my kitchen then take the vessel out to the garage to boil it using gas. To save time and me having to lug a large vessel full of very hot liquid about the place i thought i would convert it to electric then i can do all the brewing in the kitchen until i get the permenant set up i am building in an outbuilding (details are in this thread viewtopic.php?f=6&t=76164)

Hole drilled for the q-max cutter

Element all wired up

Water test and boiling!

The water started at 9.8'c and reached boiling in about an hour. It got from mash temp at about 65'c to boiling in about 25 minutes. This is a 2.75kw element and the water volume was 20l.

[vacant]

That's a neat job.

With that length of heating time, I was happy with my boiler for 40 brews until the element packed up and I had to swap out the wort and element mid-brew. Upgraded my plastic boiler to two cheap kettle elements. My shiny boiler has a 2.75 kW Backer and a 2.4kW Backer look-alike. Shorter heat times, bigger brews, vary the rolling boil, redundancy - all good reasons to have two elements, plus it sounds like you had fun doing the first one

[chefgage]

That is obviously the drawback having just the one element if it packs up mid boil! I still have my large gas burner as a back up in case this happens. I am trying not to spend too much money on my existing equipment as i am going to be building a permanent set up. Another element would be good though, the one i have just fitted does get the wort boiling but its not a what i would call a vigerous boil. I would say its a rolling boil so it should be ok.

Going to boil just water again this week to get a boil of rate figure for beersmith. After that i will be doing a ESB with the new element.

[Fil]

a wrap of lagging insulation around the pot and sitting it on a couple of flattened cardboard boxes will help focus the heat loss thru the boiling liquids surface and steam which may help the heat up speed and boil vigour another trick is to reduce the surface area of the brew with something like a Stainless steel bowl.

but a 2nd element would be a better option too imho and now you know how easy it is

[chefgage]

a wrap of lagging insulation around the pot and sitting it on a couple of flattened cardboard boxes will help focus the heat loss thru the boiling liquids surface and steam which may help the heat up speed and boil vigour another trick is to reduce the surface area of the brew with something like a Stainless steel bowl.

but a 2nd element would be a better option too imho and now you know how easy it is

Good point about the insulation. I do have means to insulate it as this vessel will also be the mash tun for biab. For some reason i never thought to insulate it before the test run. Will give it another go with the insulation on this time.

[chefgage]

Going to give this a test run at the weekend doing a simple SMaSH. Its got me thinking though. I normally put the pot on the cooker to mash then carry it out to the garage to boil. The pot is quite large to sit on the cooker and now that i am using electric the pot can just sit on the worktop near the window so the steam can escape.

Question is what would you put under the pot to protect the worktop from the heat???

[alexlark]

Cheap camping mat works wonders. I use suitcase straps so it's easy to remove and clean.

[chefgage]

I ended up using the pot support off the cooker to keep the pot of the worktop surface. To insulate the pot i used the foil bubble wrap that i used to used when using a mash tun in a three bessel setup.

Heres the pot support

[Dads_Ale]

To protect the work surface I use the interlocking rubber mats you can get for gym or garage floors. You do need the thicker solid ones though as the cheap ones don't like the heat

[Fil]

Next time you get a white goods delivery in thick a corrugated cardboard box, cut a couple of pot sized circles for a nice cheap insulating pad to sit the pot on perhaps

[chefgage]

Next time you get a white goods delivery in thick a corrugated cardboard box, cut a couple of pot sized circles for a nice cheap insulating pad to sit the pot on perhaps

I was thinking ofnusing some cardboard i had lying around but then thought why not just take the cooker pot support off and use that. Worked a treat. Also i insulated the pot for mashing in but left it on for the boil as well. I definitly got a slightly more vigerous boil with the insulation on than i did without it when testing