Beer Forum

I'm still trying to decide on electric vs. gas, and leaning towards electric for my basement brewery. I was thinking of something like baltobrewer's setup for the boil kettle as I do have 240V close by. Then one of my neighbors suggested using an inductive "burner". If it would work, this seems pretty cool. Check out
http://www.cooksdirect.com/ProductDetai ... did=2717D9

3500W of efficient heat. That one even could be installed with the control mounted elsewhere on my stand. But that one is nearly $1000. Here's another, not as ideal in configuration, but less than $250:
http://www.cookingtreasures.com/Inducti ... 240V-.html
O.k., that claims it is 50Hz as well. I don't know if it would work on US 60Hz power or not. But it suggests I should be able to find something for significantly less than $1000.

What do people think?

Induction heating may not be compatible with an aluminum pot or some stainless pots. You should check that out before you drop that much money on it.

John Palmer would know for sure.

John??????

You will need a special pot for an induction cooker, at least an all stainless one. Trust me on this one as I work in the Restaurant biz, an induction setup is incredibly expensive. That burner in the pic probably can handle a one gallon pot. To handle a ten gallon stock pot you would need a really nice cooker and it would cost you an arm and a leg...several thousand dollars. On top of that you may get it and then realize that it wont magnetically detect your boil pot which would make it impossible to use. It will also not have the power of a propane burner, not even close. A induction range for a home kitchen will have about the same power as a decent gas range. A single burner unit will be like trying to boil your wort on a single gas burner in your kitchen. I dont mean to piss on the parade though.

Induction heating may not be compatible with an aluminum pot or some stainless pots. You should check that out before you drop that much money on it.

Yeah, and my keggle is right out. I was going to research the different pots available.

I used the heat calculator from another thread. That 3500W thing should bring me to a boil in under 30 minutes (~12 gallons), less if I turn it on before the sparge is completed.

And from one of the manufacturers:

We actually recommend not using anything larger than a 14" pot or pan on the units as anything larger will then be hanging off of the edge of it or not be completely on the cooking area itself.

So I think I'm going back to the original plan. Now if I could figure out what that was.

O.k., the first reply I got from CookTek was slightly discouraging. Then I got additional information from one of their people who also happens to be a homebrewer. He's using an 1800W element for 5 gallon batches and indicates the overhang of the pot won't be an issue. We're in agreement that the 3500W element should heat up 12 gallons of wort pretty fast. So this is back in play. Another cool thing is that those things even have temperature control--you can dial it in to a set temperature and they have more sophisticated circuitry than a simple thermostat to keep it there. I'm still going to stick with my PID for mash tun, and my current plan of a PID and bucket heater for my HLT. But if I could afford two of those, I'd consider it for the HLT. Now to figure out if I can afford 1.
-Eric

YOUCH! That's some serious coin for that thing... Personally, I think it's be easier to just go with an electric element. I can put you in touch with my buddy who designed the diac for the kettle heater (basically a custom circuit board that acts like a 10,000W dimmer switch) and you could be up and running for less than $200, I'd imagine. PM me if you want to explore that option further. My system has a simple dial that makes fine-tuning the boil retarded simple. It does not, however, go to 11.

baltobrewer wrote:YOUCH! That's some serious coin for that thing... Personally, I think it's be easier to just go with an electric element. I can put you in touch with my buddy who designed the diac for the kettle heater (basically a custom circuit board that acts like a 10,000W dimmer switch) and you could be up and running for less than $200, I'd imagine. PM me if you want to explore that option further. My system has a simple dial that makes fine-tuning the boil retarded simple. It does not, however, go to 11.

you are missing the number "11" on your dial