Any electric brewers in the house?

[Nros]

Also currently tossing up between electric and gas on 7bbl. Couple of questions:
1) How long is it taking to come up to boil from mash with 27kW ish of elements?
2) Does anybody whirlpool in the kettle with electric elements sticking in?

[woohokie]

Also currently tossing up between electric and gas on 7bbl. Couple of questions:
1) How long is it taking to come up to boil from mash with 27kW ish of elements?
2) Does anybody whirlpool in the kettle with electric elements sticking in?

We run a 7bbl e kettle with 3 x 15k watt low density elements controlled via brewmation and to get to boil (provided you start heating as the wort covers the elements) is probably ~25min or so from the 195f or so I try to keep the filling kettle at or above prior to boil.

And yes, we whirpool in the same kettle which doesn't seem to cause any issues. The trub just falls right on top of the elements in a cone. We run off super clear wort from the side pickup till the cone starts to get pulled into the pump and then we're done.

[mrivers]

We use 27000 watts to bring it to a boil and it works great.

Going back a while here but how long does it take to get the 7bbl kettle up to boil with only 27kW?

[mmmatt]

I run a 3bbl stout/brewmation brewhouse and love the electric. What you pay for the controllers you save in the venting needed for gas. I pull my elements and soak them in a bucket of pbw then scrub off with a normal bathroom scrub brush. It would take 35 gallons of pbw to cover the elements in my kettle and I am too cheap for that so I run my cip ball on about 7.5 gal and manually scrub the elements.

[wlw33]

how far apart do you keep your elements? have read that having them too close together can cause excessive caramelization or charring. we run a 1.5 bbl in a 55 gallon SS drum and have one element at about the 15 gallon mark and the second at about the 30 gallon mark on opposite sides of each other, which puts them about 8 inches in height apart. would like to have them closer if possible. they are 5500w. thanks

[Thirsty_Monk]

how far apart do you keep your elements? have read that having them too close together can cause excessive caramelization or charring. we run a 1.5 bbl in a 55 gallon SS drum and have one element at about the 15 gallon mark and the second at about the 30 gallon mark on opposite sides of each other, which puts them about 8 inches in height apart. would like to have them closer if possible. they are 5500w. thanks

You should get ultra low density heating elements. No need to do the Mickey Mouse stuff.

[Karma]

We currently have the 3bbl Stout/Brewmation electric system and I love it (aside from the mash tun design)! The Electric is so efficient and easy to use. I do soak my elements after every brewday in PBW and the buildup just wipes away with very little effort. I tried once to simply spray them off but the next batch took twice as long to come to a boil. We are currently in the process of buying 10 bbl ferms to triple batch into until we can afford to buy a 10 bbl brewhouse and we are seriously considering a 10 bbl electric!