Gas Or Electricity?

[flano]

So if I want to keep doing BIAB I need to do it outside the house....the smell was too much for the missus.

That doesn't bother me in the slightest though.

Was looking at those imersion element rod thingys to get a pot up to a rolling boil...
....or those little burner stands for gas with all the jets.

My only concern with the gas is that it would chew though a 9l gas bottle very quickly.

Or urn.

any advice would be great.

I have decided to dedicate my first BIAB brew to my missus and call it " Five Horses Lager" .

nag nag nag nag nag.

 

[MarkBastard]

If you have power outside an urn is very easy and handy.

 

[flano]

If you have power outside an urn is very easy and handy.

yeah ...all my bar setup is in my garage that opens straight out into the back yard.
I have power outside .

What sort of urn ..I have seen a few on ebay but am not sure if they will get up a rolling boil for an hour.
Do they have a thermostat bypass or something?

 

[argon]

Get yourself an urn fro BIAB mate from what I hear couldnt be easier look at Craftbrewers for one.

Can set strike temp easily, with the built in temp regulator and boils well.

Easily the best solution for BIAB I could think of. And if you decide to give it up one day, can be sold for any purpose non specific to brewing.


Beaten

 

[Bribie G]

Definitely go the electricity in whatever form. For a long time brewing career, urns are great because despite their upfront cost of around $250 they more than pay for themselves with simplicity and reliability. When I hear about guys spending $7 on gas for a brew my jaw drops - great if you love the mighty Roar of the Rambo but I'd rather spend the dollars on ingredients.
They point to the speed of bringing the pot to the boil, but they are mostly (not all of course) 3v or HERMS guys but we BIABers have a distinct time advantage anyway, even if it does take longer for the urn to get up to speed and I reckon we urnies are still ahead.
Also I use HWS water with no ill effects so can usually dough in after a ten minute powerup while I'm fiddling with other stuff (my water is at about 55).

Edit: I do a mashout at 78 degrees and then when the bag is finally raised, the time the urn spends getting up to a boil is hangin and drainin time. Weighing out hop additions, cleaning any pans and stuff I have used for any adjuncts, and general faffing in the brewery soon passes the time and usualy I'm totally engrossed in doing something and suddenly become aware of the divine boil aroma drifting up my nostrils - hop time

 

[QldKev]

Either an urn, or a burner with a pot.

The urn is quite, and all in one. Generally you are limited to smaller kettle sizes 30 or 40L.

The lpg burner will get you more heat quickly and allows a 50L kettle. Last time I measured it I got about 8 batchs from a bottle. Since then I have updated my burners to be more powerful and rate them at around 5 batches per bottle; maybe I get more but haven't taken note. So still under $5 per batch for lpg.

QldKev

 

[brett mccluskey]

I use my 220kg house bottle of lpg for my burners.$34 exchange for a 9kg,$90 for a house bottle! No comparison :kooi:

 

[joshuahardie]

I use an 2400w immersion element.

Biggest drawback is that it struggles to get to a solid boil in adverse conditions.

eg brewing outside in winter, it struggles to get a boil going. Same if the pot is placed on concrete. the ground just seems to absorb a stack of heat.

Inside it works a charm every time, and the time it takes to get to a boil is quite suitable in my opinion.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[Bribie G]

I use my 220kg house bottle of lpg for my burners.$34 exchange for a 9kg,$90 for a house bottle! No comparison :kooi:

Brilliant move, why don't more people do that, I wonder? Is house gas different to LPG? I always thought that the BBQ bottles were Propane and that the house bottles were propane/methane or was that in the UK? If you are using the same burner then I guess not. Also, if on gas, then I expect if your brewery is anywhere near your kitchen a gasfitter could run out a dedicated line for a fairly standard charge.

 

[brett mccluskey]

I live a few miles out of town and i'm not on natural gas ,so I have a spare bottle on the back verandah for summer brewing(cooler) and in winter i brew on the front verandah(sunshine!) To my understanding,in the country all the gas is the same.propane or butane.It costs too much to send2 tankers.Same with LPG.The same tanker that fills the car gas at servos fills the BIG gas bottles too :beer:

 

[MarkBastard]

yeah ...all my bar setup is in my garage that opens straight out into the back yard.
I have power outside .

What sort of urn ..I have seen a few on ebay but am not sure if they will get up a rolling boil for an hour.
Do they have a thermostat bypass or something?

Get a Crown urn from craft brewer. Get 1m of their recommended silicone hosing for racking from the urn into a cube (I'm presuming you'll be no-chilling). The tube slips over the end of the Crowns tap and sits on perfectly. Couldn't be easier.

As for which urn to get, I like my concealed element one but some people don't and prefer exposed element.

If you're brewing outside maybe the exposed element one will be safer.

 

[Rodolphe01]

I went electric for the small foot print of the gear required and the simplicity.

I was worried gas ends up bulky in that you need a bottle, hose, regulator, stand, etc. Also gas seems to have a degree of stuffing about, how many threads come up re broken jets, sooty smoke, poor performance and so on.

Another advantage of electric is that you can use a timer to get your water nice and hot while you are still in bed and you can dough in straight away

I find with my exposed element crown urn I get a rolling boil, but not a furious one, I assume it is acceptable though (~14%). I have it insulated with a triple layer of camping mats (24mm total). I have only used it at night, so not sure what impact the cooler ambient is having.


Edit:

Another advanage with electric is you can insulate quite freely without fear of setting things ablaze. This is handy if you are BIAB in particular, in that you don't need to add the insulation (assuming you needed to insulate) once you've heated your water as you may need to do if using a burner.

 

[Nick JD]

Electricity is CHEAP!

15c per kilowatt hour ... running a 3000W element for 2 hours costs 90c.

Yup, 90c.

 

[Rodolphe01]

hey hey hey, but if what the 6 o'clock news tells me is correct, that figure may jump up to $1.12 in a few years...

 

[Nick JD]

hey hey hey, but if what the 6 o'clock news tells me is correct, that figure may jump up to $1.12 in a few years...

Damn! I was going to spend that 22c on somethin' noice for the missus.

 

[ekul]

Toper1, where do you get such bottles? $90 for one of them would be sweet as! Its just over twice the cost of a 8.5kg refill ($40), but over 20 times the capacity.

EDITED TO ADD~ I just did some quick reading and apparently house gas and bbq gas are two different things. Do you notice any difference in performance? I just read that a volume of lpg (house) producing 1000BTU would require less than half the amount of propane (bbq) to produce 1000btus.
It still works out cheaper!

What kind of burner are you running?

Anyone know of any safety issues with using lpg in propane appliances? I'm going to seriously look into this, sick of paying so much for gas!

thanks toper1

 

[felten]

The burner sizes are different so you have to buy one thats specific to the gas you are using. Most places have mongolian burners that are one, or the other, not sure about the other types

 

[The_Duck]

Hi All,

As the son of someone senior in the gas industry I can tell you a few things:

1. There are generally 2 types of gas used for domestic purposes - LPG (Liquid Petroleum gas) and Natural Gas
2. LPG is pretty much your standard BBQ gas. Sold in many bottle sizes including hugeass tanks you see at petrol stations.
3. Natural Gas is a different chemical makeup but you can change the jets on a burner and switch to natural gas with little fuss. This is not easily compressible and is only really used in that form in the automotive industry (Sydney Busses especially).
4. I suspect that "house gas" you refer to is "natural gas".

If you get setup at home with a natural gas burner it will be generally cheaper than electricity to do the same job.

Having just bought a burner myself, I weighed up the different gas types but just did not have the $ or contacts that could plumb in a natural gas point in the garage for brewing. It is on the cards... but not just yet.

Also... LPG and Propane are the same thing.


Duck

 

[QldKev]

Electricity is CHEAP!

15c per kilowatt hour ... running a 3000W element for 2 hours costs 90c.

Yup, 90c.

Time is expensive. I know this is a hobby and we should not take time into the key considerations; but a shorter brew day means more opportunities when I can brew.

Also we are mixing BIAB & 3V here. I think both electricity and lpg offers benefits over each other, you have to pick which is best for your environment.

Often at work if all is quite I decide to knock of at lunch time and go home to do a brew. So no timer has been setup to have water up to temp for when I get home. I get home, setup and fill up the pots (remember I run dual BIAG) with water and hit the gas. By the time I've measured out my grain and milled it (about 15-20mins) the water is up to temp. With electricity I would need 4 x 2400w elements in each pot to do the same. Also not only a time saving here, but add the extra time it would take to get from mashout up to the boil. I've saved basically an hour from my brew day compared to when I used a standard 3ring burner.

I'm not knocking electricity; it is cheaper to run, ability to insulate the pots without burning it, it is quite (something I wish my burners were) and throws off a lot less heat. Ask anyone who has seen my system running the amount of heat it throws off with both burners running, not so good when you live in Queensland and want to brew under a patio/in a car port. Also with electricity it is easier to throw in a controller to get your temps exact, very important when thinking about HERMS.

So if we compare $1 against $5 per batch for the convenience and the time factor, lpg currently wins for me with my BIAB setup. Also in my house I cant draw too much power from it; 4800w is about the limit I can use and it will cost big $ to get more power wired into the main fuse panel.

I've have been thinking since I already have some stc-1000 controllers and elements ready for my 3V, that I should set up the elements into my current pots. If I then provided decent heat shielding around the cords etc, I could still also run a lpg burner underneath. This way if I have planned to brew ahead of time I can dial up a temp on the controller have it ready for when Im there. If I decide to do a last minute brew I can just hit the lpg and get my water up to temp quickly. If this works out I may also use the same setup for my HLT when I go 3V. Use the elec + lpg to get close to temp, and then let the controller/elec get it to the exact temp. This would save the need to run multiple elements into the HLT for a quick startup.

QldKev

 

[Nick JD]

Time is expensive.

Not where I buy it.