Controlling a Heating Element

[silky]

For future reference I found these posts from the home distillers forum:

Kit to build a controller:
http://www.artisan-distiller.com/store/store.htm

The entire thread with discussion and schematics:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... &sk=t&sd=a

I might do the controller since it would be a good project, cause we all need more projects!

[foomench]

I'm not a distiller, but from what I understand, that's a lot easier thing to do with respect to temperature. They just want to hold a temp above boiling for alcohol and below boiling for water. That's more like holding a mash temp as opposed to holding a wort boil.

[Big Tex]

Check out Push Eject's site. He has a couple of examples of controlling an electric HLT. Here's the link: http://www.wortomatic.com/articles/Carl ... ectric-HLT

[Yorg]

Also check out:

http://home.highertech.net/~cdp/boilnew/boilnew.htm

and

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/i ... opic=26696

[one_dead_soul]

The obvious question that Haggerty and I have is - WHY? Boiling is boiling. Until all the water is gone - the temp is going to stay at the water boiling temp (corrected for your altitude).


Myly

A. if its to hot wont it scorch the wort?
b. wont it get to much kettle Caramelization?
c. wouldn't it be cheeper to run it at a lower power?
d. wouldn't be cool to have yet another botton or nob?
e. why would i want a steam room?

acouple of months ago i got an electric turkey deep fryer of a guy at work. the pot had a bunch of litte holes in it so he was gonna chuck it. i took the element out of it and disabled the safety. i figured it would be good for helping to heat up water and what not. so i stuck it in my kettle with some soapy water and turned it and the stove on ( had to get all the fryer grease off of it and to see how well it worked ). i checked on it every couple of minutes just to see if it was working better. didn't see any real inprovement so i went and sat down infront of the tube for about 10-15 minutes. next thing i know i see steam. go into the kichen and holy shit batman! i could have charged fat guys in robes a pritty peny to hang out in there.
to make a long story not all that much shorter.. you can't turn it down. its eather on or off. so like you guys were saying, all the controller know is 212 ( or whatever it is for you. 208.8 for me) so i eather had a huge boil and steam room or it was off. thats probably what hes trying to avoid. so now i just take it out and use the stove to keep it at a boil once i get there. i would suggest something like i do if you just wont a rolling boil. ( wich also saves your drywall if you don't have a good venting hood of one at all like me ) maybe i big element to help get it to temp and a smaller one to keep it there. that would probably be the simplest thing to do. nothing fancy. don't really even need controllers if it just for the boil.

tom

[one_dead_soul]

Also check out:

http://home.highertech.net/~cdp/boilnew/boilnew.htm

and

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/i ... opic=26696

but this looks pritty damn sweet also. kinda makes me want to finnish my..... water purifier

[silky]

Yeah the whole point here is the maintain a steady boil without having to shut the element off and on in fear of a boil over. I have looked at Push's site, in fact I am going to use the schematic for the electric HLT. Trying to make this easy as possible. No more LP. In the basement, with a hood, or without, if I want to have a sauna in my basement which is not a bad idea, thx Tom!

[Mylo]

to make a long story not all that much shorter.. you can't turn it down. its eather on or off.

OK that makes more sense now. I thought for sure that those things would have a some sort of rheostat on them or something.

In that case, a PID type controller will work well for you. You will need a SSR that can handle the wattage of your element. It even has an "auto tuning" mode so that the PID params can be tuned for the response of the system.

Here is a cool one I found that is cheaper than the Love controllers:

http://auberins.com/index.php?main_page ... ucts_id=14

The added benefit (besides the cheaper price) is that you can use these BAD ASS probes that have a bayonet connector on them - so the probe stays in your kettle, and you can disconnect the wire for cleaning, etc.

http://auberins.com/index.php?main_page ... ucts_id=96



Mylo