Keg Boiler Heating

by **tgr** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:57 pm

g'day all
i have been doing a fair bit of reading but cannot decide to go electric or gas to heat my keg. i would probably rather electric for safety reasons, but heating control is way to complicated for my simple head to get around. i will be running a pot still for stripping runs and a 2" boka for spirit runs. if i installed a 2200W element, would i need heating control? and will this size be sufficient?
cheers :handgestures-thumbupleft:

by **Rumdrinker** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:36 pm

Hi tgr,
I run my 2" LM on a 2400 watt element powered keg with no controller & it works fine so a 2200 watter should be much the same. Occasionally I also run the 2" pot still on it which is a bit slow but bearable. HP gas powered is the go for stripping & pot stilling if its an option.
Cheers

by **stilly_bugger** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:42 pm

I ran a keg with a 2,200w element. For a boka, 2,200 without heating control would be fine. What's the worst that could happen? You get more reflux than is needed. No problem. For a pot, 2,200 can get tedious. A 50lt strip takes 6 hours. That's ages.

I ended up putting a second 2,200 element in. Much better.

Just a tip though. If you're buying a keg king element, buy a 32mm sealing washer from somewhere else. The silicone ones that come with the element are too big and don't seal well. Any home brew shop will sell replacement seals for all sorts of 32mm heating elements.

by **grehund** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:38 pm

Hi TGR,

I run a 2kW element in my 25L boiler with my 2" Bok. It takes about 1 hour (from memory) to get up to temp, maybe a little longer. Once it's there though, I haven't had any issues with it, aside from the long run times. :handgestures-thumbdown:

For my new www.5stardistilling.com.au Dash1, I'll be using a keg with 2x 2.2kW elements from KegKing. We built a Voltage Controller from Panda's schematics to run with 1 of those elements. In my leakage & boil tests, I haven't had any problems with the silicon seals that KegKing supplied, but time will tell. :-|

If you're really worried about building a voltage controller, you can always buy one ready-made.

by **punchy21** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:59 pm

grehund wrote:If you're really worried about building a voltage controller, you can always buy one ready-made.

I think panda was making up a few for some people not that long ago... Maybe give him a PM and see if he is still making them? He has a thread in "commercial sales" :handgestures-thumbupleft:

by **tgr** » Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:50 am

cheers for the tips fellas. i ended up getting 2x keg king 2200 watt elements. I have tested them and so far have had no issues with the seals, but as grehund says, only time will tell. :handgestures-thumbupleft: