Low Cost Option to Contol Temp On 7BBL Electric Brew Kettle

[OneRiver]

Hello All,
My original plan was to go with a 7bbl direct fire heated kettle but I located a nice location that has no gas hook up. I'm looking into electric and trying to keep my cost down if possible. From what I'm told, I will need at least 4ea 15K heating elements and a method to control the temperature. Brewmation has a control panel in the $15k range, is there an inexpensive option to control the heat/elements? I will only be controlling the brew kettle, no HLT.

Thanks in advance, Cheers!!

[scotts]

You don't need to control the temperature on a BK, only the rate of boil. If you're lucky, unplugging one or two of the four 15kw heating elements should do the trick.

Otherwise you can make a simplified control panel with a PID, such as those available from Auber Instruments. When the PID is on manual mode, some portion of time they're on, some portion they're off (such as 50% of every 2 second cycle, configurable from the PID). And if you really did want to control the temperature, flip the PID over to automatic mode. You'll also need some beefy SSRs for the heating elements, since the PID will only work with very low voltages, and a box to put everything in. That's oversimplifying it, but that's basically it. I built this exact system for my 5kw pilot brewery, but am having an engineer build it for my 7 bbl/60kw brewhouse, with a few more bells and whistles.

[SMiller]

I have a 9bbl kettle with three 15k watt elements from Brewmation, they're just wired directly into 60amp safety switches and flipped on and off. I use all three to get to a boil, then two to maintain a hard boil.

[OneRiver]

I have a 9bbl kettle with three 15k watt elements from Brewmation, they're just wired directly into 60amp safety switches and flipped on and off. I use all three to get to a boil, then two to maintain a hard boil.

Thanks You Scotts & SMiler, exactly what I was looking for.

SMiler, what is your boil time with the 3 elements? Also, how is your electricity bill?

Cheers!!