Gas Vs Electric

[LethalCorpse]

Yep, I just did a bit of research into it, and it looks quite nasty. They've introduced "Time of use" tariffs, which use meters with inbuilt timers so they know when your power is consumed, as Peter said. They installed new meters here the week before last, no mention whatsoever of changing prices, but you can guarantee that's why they've done it. The bloke who did ours rang the doorbell and told us he was shutting off the power, didn't give us an option. When I asked why, he said the old ones were just dated.

 

[Aaron]

i personally like the idea of electric HLT and a gas kettle,

My rational is you dont have to clean sticky solution off a hot element...

That is my setup. Electric is good for the hlt as the time it takes to heat p is not as important as the time it takes to get the kettle boiling. I currently have a 40l electric urn as my hlt. The timer gets turned on the night before and it's ready to mash in when I wake up in the morning. Use a standard burner for the kettle which gets it to boiling a lot faster than anything other than a very large electric element could.

 

[pbrosnan]

I have an all electric set up, 2x30l urns (HLT and kettle) plus a 20L for the HERMS. All are standard 2400 watt elements. I do 27-28L batches, I get the 30L full to about an inch from the rim. It takes about 20mins to come to a rolling boil after the run off from the tun. I've never had any issues with this set up, there's no such thing as"scorched wort" unless you allow the wort to reduce to a paste. The only thing that sticks to the element is what's sometimes called beer stone, it's not sticky, more like calcification and it can cause the kettle to trip out if allowed to build up.

 

[Peter Wadey]

Thanks Peter - Just checked, and it's all good. The trick is to not ask for an off-peak meter...

Although - a seperate off-peak meter could be a real boon for weeknd boils!

Andy

Hi Andy,
Not quite how it works (as per Stu's post), which is why I was asking about when you were likely to heat.

These new Smart/ Interval/ Type 5 meters measure the load in intervals (30min intervals for us).
The tariffs are applied at the billing stage, so a seperate off-peak meter is not required to get an off-peak tariff.

To give you some idea, the Time of Use (Energy Australia Powersmart ) tariffs we are on at present are:
Peak rate 27.61 c/kWh 2pm - 8pm working weekdays
Shoulder Rate 9.79 c/kWh 7am - 2pm, 8pm - 10pm working weekdays, 7am-10pm weekends & P/ Hols
Off Peak 5.61 c/kWh 10pm - 7am everyday

At present the Shoulder & Off Peak rates are less than the Domestic All Time rate of 12.87c/kWh , but the savings are eaten away somewhat by the high cost between 2 & 8pm. The ability to shift loads (discretionary demand) will dictate how much can be saved......if any.
When I first caught wind of the change, I started doing some load monitoring. Without changing our behaviour, I calculated our bill went up 15% in the 1st week! I have since run around & put timers on some things like keg freezer/ washing machine.

I don't know if the Victorian suppliers are doing the same sort of thing, but thought I'd give you a heads up just in case.

Pete
(wishing he had gas in the street)

 

[Adzmax]

I think it's personal preference, I like Gas because it's portable and it's reasonably cheap. I'm particularly concerned about cost but it would be interesting to compare what the $ difference is on an average brew - Gas bottle V's electric.

 

[justsomeguy]

I think it's personal preference, I like Gas because it's portable and it's reasonably cheap. I'm particularly concerned about cost but it would be interesting to compare what the $ difference is on an average brew - Gas bottle V's electric.

I used to run gas and changed to electric because of the costs. It was $25 for a 9Kg gas refill and I got around 6 batches per refill. I worked the electricity usage based upon both of my elements running for a full 6 hours, a gross overestimate, but workable. The electricity costs worked out at around 20 cents per batch. From memory I worked out that it was going to take around 20 batches to recover the costs of the elements and associated bits and pieces and then start saving.

Then there is the convenience thing of not having to run down the the servo to get the bottle refilled all the time...

gary

 

[rich_lamb]

Hey Andy,

why don't you just build your own fast breeder reactor and you can have all the power you like. You could probably use the cooling water for your strike water (maybe use a heat exchanger first).

And you could sell all the excess Plutonium to cover costs ? :icon_cheers:

 

[Andyd]

Hey Andy,

why don't you just build your own fast breeder reactor and you can have all the power you like. You could probably use the cooling water for your strike water (maybe use a heat exchanger first).

And you could sell all the excess Plutonium to cover costs ? :icon_cheers:

Don't go giving me ideas - it's just too dangerous

Andy

 

[kirem]

I did have an electric HLT/HERMS heat exchanger and a gas kettle.

I now have an electric HLT, separate electric heat exchanger and electric kettle. All are fitted with 3.6kW elements.

I think that the gas kettles are very lossy compared to an emersed element. All the heat from the element goes straight into the wort in the kettle, as opposed to a gas kettle that directly heats a lot of the air and metal around the kettle. My kettle is insulated and is only slightly warm to touch on the outside; I am looking at getting all vessels insulated by a wine tank insulating company up here in Irymple.

The HLT and Heat-EX are controlled by PID temperature controllers, the kettle is controlled by a sutronics burst fire controller (manual boil control)

Electric elements are a lot easier to automate and fine tune for maximum power efficiency.

A simple timer heats the HLT during off peak tariff, and then once at temperature a solenoid opens fills the mash/lauter tun to the preset height then refills and heats to strike. Once full this then activates the power to the recirculation and step mash program (march pump and heat-ex), when ready and although I could automate it, I then manually empty the tun to kettle, flood and recirculate and empty until I am happy with SG and volume. The kettle is then brought to a boil at maximum power - 3.6kW. Once at a rolling boil the power is turned down to rolling boil (I know approximate setting from experience). A timer then runs either 60/90/120 min boil. My point is this is very hard and expensive to do with gas.

Electrics are a lot easier to protect with residual current devices etc etc. Most houses have walk up protection, I would be surprised if many gas kettle set-ups had any sort of failsafe, gas leakage detection (other than smell) etc.

I have negligible time difference getting my kettle to boil using 3.6kW compared to a gas burner (both NASA and Mongolian from G&G)

I have a young family and a sometimes demanding job so the level of automation and low cost power I can achieve using a few float switches, solenoids etc is perfect for my situation. I am up early with the young 'ens and have a brew session finished by 7am.

The amount of radiated heat from gas in my opinion was too dangerous to allow my 5 year old near the brewery to help me and answer his curiosity.

I don't need to worry about running out of gas, although if the power goes out and I need to continue the process, I need to start-up the generator which makes the whole thing expensive.

There are probably other reasons I like using electricity and some of the above reasons will not be appropriate for your situation.

I am now working on a decoction set-up on the electric brewery and that uses a gas burner under the tun to heat the thick part of the mash. The thin part gets pumped away to the kettle for safekeeping.

I also have 3 phase it's great to use if I want to do another mash whilst I have one going in the kettle- I can run all three 3.6kW elements at once, as they are pulse modulated for temperature control, they don't always draw full current and I am unlikely the have them draw full current all at the same time. Before I had a 3 phase outlet, I had a simple SSR interlock that stopped the kettle element and the combined HLT & heat-ex elements drawing power at the same time. I like 3 phase, seems like the right thing to do at these power levels.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

I did have an electric HLT/HERMS heat exchanger and a gas kettle.

I now have an electric HLT, separate electric heat exchanger and electric kettle. All are fitted with 3.6kW elements.

I think that the gas kettles are very lossy compared to an emersed element. All the heat from the element goes straight into the wort in the kettle, as opposed to a gas kettle that directly heats a lot of the air and metal around the kettle. My kettle is insulated and is only slightly warm to touch on the outside; I am looking at getting all vessels insulated by a wine tank insulating company up here in Irymple.

The HLT and Heat-EX are controlled by PID temperature controllers, the kettle is controlled by a sutronics burst fire controller (manual boil control)

Electric elements are a lot easier to automate and fine tune for maximum power efficiency.

A simple timer heats the HLT during off peak tariff, and then once at temperature a solenoid opens fills the mash/lauter tun to the preset height then refills and heats to strike. Once full this then activates the power to the recirculation and step mash program (march pump and heat-ex), when ready and although I could automate it, I then manually empty the tun to kettle, flood and recirculate and empty until I am happy with SG and volume. The kettle is then brought to a boil at maximum power - 3.6kW. Once at a rolling boil the power is turned down to rolling boil (I know approximate setting from experience). A timer then runs either 60/90/120 min boil. My point is this is very hard and expensive to do with gas.

Electrics are a lot easier to protect with residual current devices etc etc. Most houses have walk up protection, I would be surprised if many gas kettle set-ups had any sort of failsafe, gas leakage detection (other than smell) etc.

I have negligible time difference getting my kettle to boil using 3.6kW compared to a gas burner (both NASA and Mongolian from G&G)

I have a young family and a sometimes demanding job so the level of automation and low cost power I can achieve using a few float switches, solenoids etc is perfect for my situation. I am up early with the young 'ens and have a brew session finished by 7am.

The amount of radiated heat from gas in my opinion was too dangerous to allow my 5 year old near the brewery to help me and answer his curiosity.

I don't need to worry about running out of gas, although if the power goes out and I need to continue the process, I need to start-up the generator which makes the whole thing expensive.

There are probably other reasons I like using electricity and some of the above reasons will not be appropriate for your situation.

I am now working on a decoction set-up on the electric brewery and that uses a gas burner under the tun to heat the thick part of the mash. The thin part gets pumped away to the kettle for safekeeping.

I also have 3 phase it's great to use if I want to do another mash whilst I have one going in the kettle- I can run all three 3.6kW elements at once, as they are pulse modulated for temperature control, they don't always draw full current and I am unlikely the have them draw full current all at the same time. Before I had a 3 phase outlet, I had a simple SSR interlock that stopped the kettle element and the combined HLT & heat-ex elements drawing power at the same time. I like 3 phase, seems like the right thing to do at these power levels.

This is definatly worth reading :icon_cheers:

It is an age old debate, and it really comes down to what suits and what you have available...

I was looking at getting a bayonet off the gas bottle in my brew shed, and also having a temp controlled element for a HERMS.......one day.....