Single element boil kettle?

[Dads_Ale]

Spoke to an electrician friend who brews all grain he offered me his wort boiler on loan he runs a single 3kw 11" immersion heart from a hot water tank. He did advise to brew outside as its not practical indoors with All the steam etc.

You can vent the steam outside with a bit of ingenuity :);

This boiler (56 litre) has 2 elements and I tend to use both for a vigorous boil. I did, however, have no problem with a smaller 30 ltre boiler plastic with a single 2.4kw element, 30 brews in total on this before upgrading to shiny :)

 

[Squiggs]

I recently installed a 2.4kw argos kettle element to a 33ltr FV and when tested it took an hour and a half to reach a boil then I picked up some of that insulting bubble wrap stuff from Homebase and it reached mash temp in 20mins and another 15 to reach a nice rolling boil.when boiling the temp on the outside of the wrap was only 27c

 

[chesters-mild]

I've got a Peco boiler & use water from my hot tap (all copper pipes) and get 52c water out, 32 lit. hits my mash temp in 12min. or so - that helps a lot.
As to a boil, yes insulate the boiler as much as you can, use at least 2 layers of insulation (cheap yoga mats) this way I get 27/28lit. to a good boil in 25min. Insulated my mash tun the same way & the loss in temp. is only 1.5c in 90min.
Cheers

 

[the_quick]

I use two cheap kettle elements, both to reach boil and just leave one on for boiling - good enough for rolling boil. No problem what so ever !