How is your brew rig powered?

[krausenhaus]

2400W element for 70L HLT, Italian spiral burner for 70L kettle.

 

[gava]

Gone from Gas to Electric / Gas Hybrid and now Full Electric (Currently sold)
New Rig going to be Full Electric also hopefully 32amp rig

Id be interested in another vote for the AMP's of the electric rigs.

 

[sp0rk]

2200W 50L HLT and 3 ring burner for the 18 gallon kettle
I'm thinking of upgrading to a NASA burner eventually

 

[primusbrew]

All gas for me. I am pretty happy with it but I am planning on getting one of these over the side elements to reduce the time it takes to reach strike temp and then boil. The only problem is wiring at the moment.

I knew that gas would have been more expensive but hadn't looked at the numbers. It seems like you electric guys are saving a fair bit on each brew compared to what I am doing.

immersionelement.gif

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Electric here, but if I lived in India I'd probably use dried cow dung, or even run tests on using human dried dung as there's plenty lying around for free. There could be a problem with the second option however if the moisture to solid content of loose stools in the mix were excessively high making the collection & drying process much too involved, messy, & inefficient too be worthwhile. It would be interesting to know though which if any of the dried products burns hotter or more efficiently. With all the chilli in the human diet over there one would think the human dried dung would burn hotter. As anyone who has partaken of a particularly hot curry for diner can confirm the human digestive tract doesn't extract all the heat from the meal by screaming from the often painful arse ring burning during their early morning bowel evacuation the next day! As I have no intention of going to India these burning questions will sadly have to go unanswered for a while at least .

I read a book some years ago on alternative power and there are power stations in India which run on human excreta. As for myself my alternative power is solar, I am all electric and wouldn't go any other way.

 

[recharge]

Actually i do have a couple of those over the side elements somewhere. Might dig them out and connect to tempmaster so i don't have to wait around whilst getting to strike temp.
Still like the NASA for speed though and don't find gas consumption that bad.

Rich

 

[Truman42]

Surprising to see how many of you use a combination of both gas and electric.

 

[QldKev]

Out of intrest why do people goto electric? (i havent brewed AG) Edit to add 'YET '

I was not as worried about the cost of elec Vs LPG for running. I did find LPG to be about 3x the price per brew, but both are still a fairly cheap running cost.

Why I prefer electric is the heat and noise of LPG was killing me. I live in sunny qld, and brew in my carport. I was running 2 x NASA burners under my kettle. They were noisy, and would heat up the work area a lot. The heat from the carport would end up heating the entire house up. SWMBO would get sick of the noise, so would shut the door from the carport into the main house and make it even hotter in the carport. With electric it still warms up the area a little, but is a huge difference. And the quietness of the electric is awesome. As a bonus electric is easy to control.

For pure grunt work the LPG NASA burners win. I have 6,000w in my kettle and 1 NASA was quicker to the boil.

 

[Glot]

With the amount of coin some of you blokes are willing to spend, why not look at induction?

 

[real_beer]

I read a book some years ago on alternative power and there are power stations in India which run on human excreta. As for myself my alternative power is solar, I am all electric and wouldn't go any other way.

I saw a documentary where women in one area of the Chinese countryside wont marry men unless they have a large sewage digester connected to their home that supplies all the gas for cooking, heating, & lighting. It apparently saves them travelling about 10 miles a day scouring the hillsides for firewood. The Chinese government played a large part in developing & promoting the idea. I think Germany also has a huge project that's turns human poop into high quality fertiliser.
I've often thought we should do the same & start reclaiming target areas of degraded land around Australia with converted human waste. Creeping deserts & sand is a huge problem & as politicians here are so keen to look for new industries to create future employment in this rapidly changing world, it might be an area worth looking at on a large scale. You'd have to come up with some good names for the job titles to attract people though such as: Microbiological Human Digestive Engineer, Caterpillar DB9 Technical Excrement Spreader, MLSS Trojan Shovel Operator (Manual Large Stainless Steel), Level 6 Land Management Sampler with TCMSSG qualification, (Tafe Certified Manual **** Shovelling Graduate), and one must not forget to mention the 20,000 new positions that would be created alone for Health & Safety Officers.

 

[tavas]

All electric based in cost and control.

 

[citizensnips]

Running biab with 4 ring burner under my 50L keggle. Had the option to go electric at the beginning but really liked or preferred the idea of using fire. Now looking at it I see the preference to electric but I don't brew heaps so doesn't bother me.

 

[AndrewQLD]

Electric hlt, electric hems and gs fired kettle.
I like gas for the kettle as I use two different pots, one for single batches and one for doubles.

 

[Bizier]

I still juggle my brewing liquor from the boil kettle, which is gas, but mash utilises 2400W herms.

 

[Yob]

doing a single batch on my old gas rig used 4.5kg LPG.

WTF?? That is an extraordinary amount of gas on a single batch.. I got somewhere between 6 and 9 brews from a 9kg bottle for single batches and expect roughly 6 doing tripple batches.. and I have 3 bottles so I never run out, when I get onto the last bottle, I fill the 2 emptys.

 

[MartinOC]

45 Kg bottles of LPG - about 3x the cost of a 9Kg bottle for 5x the amount of gas. Delivered to your door & the empty taken away. Use the 9Kg bottle on the BBQ as an emergency backup if required mid-brew.

 

[JDW81]

2.4kw element in my HLT and a 23 jet mongolian under my kettle. Transfers between vessels all follow the laws of gravity down a tier system. Works for me.

JD

 

[mckenry]

What I have found for doing a single batch on my old gas rig used 4.5kg LPG which these days is about $14 (from memory) vs my new rig with a 2200w + 1500w BIAB which costs about $3 a brew. I normally do around 14 brews a year so my new electric system costs $42 a year vs $196 so saving around $150 a year on running costs.

Thats ridiculous man! I get at least 9 brews from my 9kg LPG bottle. I have to bring 72L wort to the boil, but not my HLT (elec)
I get my bottle refilled in Sydney for approx $16, so its less than $2 gas each brew.

 

[BungBrew]

$16! I swapped my 9kg BBQ bottle today and it cost me $37!!!

 

[AndrewQLD]

$16! I swapped my 9kg BBQ bottle today and it cost me $37!!!

Sounds like service station prices, average price up here for the 9 kilo bottle is $25.00 refill at bunnings, bcf and Bundy hot gases.