Before I started construction on my new electric brew kettle I wanted to test my stove out. I put 2.5 gallons of water in my brew kettle and time how long it would take to boil. Well.. I did not give myself enough time before I had to leave. At around the 50 minute mark I was pretty much boiling but it was not a roiling boiling.
So know that the base testing is out of the way lets add in the water heater element.
The Parts that I used. I have my amazon order I'll put up here eventually I'm feeling lazy right now.
Started to drill the brew kettle. Defiantly take your time! I used a titanium step bit and lots of drilling oil. The stainless steal will not absorb the heat like wood does so it goes all into the drill bit, the oil helps to cool it down.
The bigger hole for the heating element and the smaller hole for the thermometer. I added the thermometer because I could and was already doing work on the kettle.
Here is a picture of the wired up heating element. black is hot, white is neutral, and the green one is ground with is J-B welded between the washer and the kettle.
Water tight testing. Pass!
Staring to boil water to see how long it will take. Plus a nice picture of the thermometer.
You can see the water starting to boil in these picture. It took about 30 minutes to get the water to a rolling boil. This should really help during my brew day!
My last step is to find a better cover over the electrical elements. The one I bought on amazon ended up not fitting over my heating element. I just need to go to hard ware store and pick up something different and glue it on. Will update when I get a clean picture of that and the finished product!
Total cost including parts and the original price of the kettle came to about a $100. Not to bad. This really wont be able to handle to much more than an extract brew which is not a problem for me. I'll be in that spot for a while.