HowbeckAles
Active Member
Evening!
Finished constructing my first all-grain set up today having previously been confined to kits with the odd hop addition. Couple of things I've noticed during testing that I was not too sure about and would appreciate your comments.
I have installed 2x 1.5kW kettle elements into a suitable bucket from the Home Brew Shop in Aldershot and I noticed that when both were switched on the water achieved a good rolling boil at about 97 degrees (as read by my cheap digital thermometer). When I switched one off the boil continued but with far less vigour at about 95 degrees. Would this be good enough not to cause any problems with timings etc during the boil? I'm not sure how temperature critical it needs to be and I'd prefer not to use both elements for a prolonged period of time.
Also the boiler can hold 30L of liquid but it's very close to the top of the bucket. I've ruined my hob with boilovers in the past so should I reduce my batch sizes to allow more space in the boiler to prevent the wort running all over my garage floor? There's about two inches of headspace with 30L ish in the boiler. I've noticed that some of the videos online have the hot break happening very close to the top of the boiler so I'm guessing it'll be ok.
I think that's it! Just need to find a recipe now. Some great suggestions on here so fingers crossed for the first brew.
Cheers all.
Finished constructing my first all-grain set up today having previously been confined to kits with the odd hop addition. Couple of things I've noticed during testing that I was not too sure about and would appreciate your comments.
I have installed 2x 1.5kW kettle elements into a suitable bucket from the Home Brew Shop in Aldershot and I noticed that when both were switched on the water achieved a good rolling boil at about 97 degrees (as read by my cheap digital thermometer). When I switched one off the boil continued but with far less vigour at about 95 degrees. Would this be good enough not to cause any problems with timings etc during the boil? I'm not sure how temperature critical it needs to be and I'd prefer not to use both elements for a prolonged period of time.
Also the boiler can hold 30L of liquid but it's very close to the top of the bucket. I've ruined my hob with boilovers in the past so should I reduce my batch sizes to allow more space in the boiler to prevent the wort running all over my garage floor? There's about two inches of headspace with 30L ish in the boiler. I've noticed that some of the videos online have the hot break happening very close to the top of the boiler so I'm guessing it'll be ok.
I think that's it! Just need to find a recipe now. Some great suggestions on here so fingers crossed for the first brew.
Cheers all.