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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Recipe help request ("Grant")
  Re: Electric Brewery ("Todd Snyder")


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Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 06:06:30 +1100
From: "Grant" <gstott at primus.com.au>
Subject: Recipe help request

G'day All,

It's been a fair while since I last posted but you Guy's & Gal's tend to be
pretty helpful to us Aussies so here goes.
A friend who spent some time  living in the US. has asked if I will attempt
to brew a clone of BridgePort IPA.
I have the Beer Captured recipe which is:-

10.33 lb.              Pale malt
      10 oz.   40L crystal malt

1 oz.      Chinook    11% AA                   60 min.
3/4 oz.  East Kent Goldings                   15 min.
3/4 oz.  Cascade                                     15 min.

1/2 oz. Crystal                                             1min.
1/2 oz. Cascade                                         1min.
1/2 oz.  East Kent Goldings                      1min.

1/2 oz. Cascade                                         Dry Hop

WYeast 1056

For 5 gal.  O.G. 1.056          F.G. 1.013         49 IBU     9 SRM

Now the help part.

 Firstly I have never had this beer so does the Beer Captured recipe look
like it should come close?

Secondly it seems that the only US hops that I can get are cascades so can
someone suggest alternatives for Chinook ( I'm thinking bittering being not
so important I could use Horizon)
& Crystal.

Thanks in advance.

Grant  Stott
[9906, 260] AR (statute miles) or [15942.2, 260] AR [Km]

    Geelong,
    Victoria.
    Australia.




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Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 10:29:58 -0500
From: "Todd Snyder" <tmsnyder at buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: Electric Brewery

Mike Sharp added some clarification to my previous post:

<1.  "And don't be afraid of 220 V, it's actually only 110 V if you 
accidentally touch a hot wire, just like "regular" power."

While the voltage to ground/neutral is nominally 110 v, I hope it's clear 
that this doesn't make it safe.  It only takes 100 milliamperes through the 
chest to kill you.  >

Yes, it's true Mike, you could still be killed by one of the legs of a
single phase 220VAC circuit.  The point I was illustrating is that there is
no reason to run elements at 110 instead of 220 in the name of safety. It's
not any more dangerous than the stuff you use every day, there's no reason
to avoid 220 for 110VAC solutions to problems that don't exist under the
following (common sense) conditions:

1)  Protect the circuit with a GFI breaker. (got mine on ebay for $50)
2)  Ground the kettle

<Also, 120volt breakers (single pole, 15 and 20 amp) from 
some manufacturers use magnetic trips in addition to a thermal trip.  That 
means a Square-D breaker will trip nearly instantly in a fault condition. 
Bryant also has single pole breakers with magnetic trips.  A 2 pole breaker 
usually does not have this magnetic trip.  So a 220V circuit is not as 
"safe" as a 110V circuit that uses a magnetic trip.>

That's why the 220V circuit should be GFI protected, it's the exact same
protection as 110V GFI protection. 

I'm not sure what you're refering to by "magnetic trip" There are plain
breakers that trip on overcurrent, I'm assuming they use some sort of
thermal trip as you say above.  There are 'arc fault' breakers, I'm not sure
how they work specifically but I wouldn't use them in this application,
somehow they detect arcing and trip on that as well as overcurrent. 

Then there is GFI, which trips when there is an imbalance in current of
something like a few mA and should be used around water.  So if any current
makes its way to ground it trips within a few milliseconds. Maybe Mike is
not aware of it, but they make 220VAC GFI breakers.  The application is
common for electrically heated hot tubs.  These are perfect for brewing,
50A, 220VAC and offer exactly the same protection as a 110V GFI protected
circuit.  What more could you ask for?  I got mine on ebay for $50. 

<That said, you should 
never be careless in either case and depend on this to save your butt.>

Obviously, and if someone wants to go this route and doesn't know exactly
what they are doing they should hire an electrician. 

<2.  "To anyone thinking electric brewing might not be safe, consider all
the 
people out there bathing and showering in water being simultaneously heated 
by electricity in their hot water tanks!  And those are not GFI protected"

Remember, an electric hot water heater is grounded.  You don't take a bath 
in the hot water heater, but you might reach into a pail. The purpose of a 
good ground connection is to ensure that the overcurrent device will open in

the event of a fault.  In other words, it ensures that there is plenty of 
fault current available.  If you use an electric heater in your converted 
keg, make sure the  keg is well grounded.  Note that electrically heated hot

tubs have a "current collector" that completely encloses the heating 
element.  This is redundantly grounded (an internal ground through the power

line, and an external ground that is also bonded to the motor). This ensures

that the fault current path is from the failed heater to the current 
collector and through the ground back to the panel.  You never want to be R1

to ground!>

That is true, there would be no extra current collector around the element.
But a well grounded kettle should be adequate as a first line of defense
with a GFI breaker backing it up. 

Grounding anything heated by an electric element can't be stressed enough.
The tricky thing is that a ground on your kettle is something that you will
have to add, there's no ground lug on the element, just the two 'hot'
connectors.  That's why I also wrote but wasn't quoted by Mike as saying:
"making sure everything is grounded.  This includes the kettle near the
element. "  

<3. "I bent two of my elements 90 degrees by placing them in a tubing
bender, 
the two legs fit into the bender in the 1/4 and 3/8" slots as close to the 
threaded end as possible.  No need to heat it to bend it, they're made of 
copper tubing. "

Some may be made of copper, others of stainless, and some of inconel.  But, 
yes, they can be bent.  How else would the manufacturer get them in that 
nice U shape?  No need to use heat for this!  Bending carries the risk of 
damaging the heater, though.  You'd have to bend both legs of a basic U 
shape at the same time to prevent kinking.  Personally, I'd be nervous about

bending one leg in a 1/4 die and the other in a 3/8 die.  Perhaps you could 
go back and forth, bending each leg a little at a time.  But, yes use a 
tubing bender! >

Sure, they come in all sort of other materials, but I assumed we were
dealing with the $25 variety available at everyone's local hardware store.
The one's I've seen are copper tubing coated in either a black or silver
finish.  I never noticed a stainless steel variety at the local Home Depot. 

The fact that the manufacturer had to have bent it during production was the
reason why I tried it myself.  Even so I was a little nervous about ruining
something I'd just paid $25 for.  The reason the essentially 1/4 inch tubing
bent ok in the 3/8 inch slot was because the insulation/heat conducting
material inside keeps it from kinking.  It's probably a moot point, however;
it's very unlikely that the people who may want to try this would have such
a tubing bender on hand.  For that reason Mike is right, you could probably
go back and forth bending each of the legs a little at a time with whatever
tubing bender you have access to.

The point is that for basement brewing I would argue that electric brewing
is safer (no fumes or fire hazard), faster, and easier (no gas plumbing, no
venting of massive amounts of waste heat and fumes) than brewing with
natural gas.  Just my opinion after brewing both ways. 

Todd in Buffalo







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