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Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 10:03 am
by jtmwhyte
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 11:06 am
by jacinthebox
Impressive. ..we have been designing and gathering stuff to make a shared ekettle...it would have been nice to have something ready this weekend...brewing in a blizzard will be challenging lol
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 12:29 pm
by CorneliusAlphonse
I am looking at getting one of these! Only part I wasn't confident in was removing the casing from a10 gauge wire to fit it through there. If someone can tell me that's fine I'll likely be ordering one next week.
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 1:29 pm
by mcgster
I have one of these in my cart now and have been putting it off. I have a heat stick I built myself that works great but I wanted a second one for back to back batches! What is your overall impression. I spent 90$ on the parts from still dragon for my first one and this would work out to be about the same.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 2:32 pm
by jtmwhyte
It was 77 bucks total and arrived in 6 days, which is impressive. The overall impression that I have is that it's a very elegant piece of equipment. The welds are beautiful and the reviews are great. I can get more close up pics if you like
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 6:13 pm
by mcgster
Awesome, what are you running for an element?
Any chance you could post a close up shot looking at the element housing from the side?
Thanks!
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 7:00 pm
by jtmwhyte
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 7:02 pm
by mcgster
Yes that looks solid!
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 8:59 pm
by jtmwhyte
Picked up some 10/3 from Nedco today and slid it through with some fishing line and keg lube. Element should arrive on Thursday or Friday.
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:15 pm
by CorneliusAlphonse
jtmwhyte wrote:Picked up some 10/3 from Nedco today and slid it through with some fishing line and keg lube. Element should arrive on Thursday or Friday.
Did the 10 gauge slide through with the outer casing on? The site said it wouldn't. If it did, I'll be starting a group buy.
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:17 pm
by jtmwhyte

No. The casing had to come off

Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:08 pm
by jtmwhyte
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:11 pm
by jtmwhyte
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/CONCORD-Large-St ... RTM1963929" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I'm gonna pick up the 80 qt version of this mother to support the grain bag for 10G BIAB
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:10 pm
by CorneliusAlphonse
if anyone else is looking at doing this, we've got a group buy happening right now:
http://brewnosers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=7937" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 9:57 am
by mckay75
Trevor...I'm thinking of getting one of these for my keggle. Would you recommend the 90 degree bend?
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 5:22 pm
by jtmwhyte
mckay75 wrote:Trevor...I'm thinking of getting one of these for my keggle. Would you recommend the 90 degree bend?
It was moderately difficult to get the three 10/3 wires past the bend, but not anything overly complicated imho. I got the bend, so I can't really recommend keeping it straight as I've not seen it. I like the idea of the cord hanging over and away from the steam.
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 5:30 pm
by mckay75
jtmwhyte wrote:mckay75 wrote:Trevor...I'm thinking of getting one of these for my keggle. Would you recommend the 90 degree bend?
It was moderately difficult to get the three 10/3 wires past the bend, but not anything overly complicated imho. I got the bend, so I can't really recommend keeping it straight as I've not seen it. I like the idea of the cord hanging over and away from the steam.
Yeah that's what I was thinking too, glad I ordered it with the bend.
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:38 pm
by Jayme
I've been looking at this and pondering about it (don't think it's something I need right now), but one word of caution - watch the insulation temp of your wire. If you're using a 5500W element at 240V, that is 23A in essentially a 100C ambient. A typical conservative rating is 10 to 35C rise in your wire. For 10C you would need 8awg and 110C insulation minimum, and for 35C you would need 10awg (technically 11 if it were common) and 135C insulation minimum. Bundling is another consideration, but for 2 conductors, the de-rating should be 1. So if you're doing 10awg, you would probably have to go with 200C wire (typical ratings are 80, 90, 105, 125, and 200), which is frankly not all that common. Anyway, that's my 2 cents, take it for what its worth (part of my day job is designing cable harnesses).
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:51 pm
by jtmwhyte
Jayme wrote:I've been looking at this and pondering about it (don't think it's something I need right now), but one word of caution - watch the insulation temp of your wire. If you're using a 5500W element at 240V, that is 23A in essentially a 100C ambient. A typical conservative rating is 10 to 35C rise in your wire. For 10C you would need 8awg and 110C insulation minimum, and for 35C you would need 10awg (technically 11 if it were common) and 135C insulation minimum. Bundling is another consideration, but for 2 conductors, the de-rating should be 1. So if you're doing 10awg, you would probably have to go with 200C wire (typical ratings are 80, 90, 105, 125, and 200), which is frankly not all that common. Anyway, that's my 2 cents, take it for what its worth (part of my day job is designing cable harnesses).
For my purposes for now (to get cooler BIAB strike water to temp in the cooler) it should work fine with my 100C wire, but if I ever do decide to go with the full boil with this sucker I'll certainly be upgrading the wire.
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:07 pm
by Jayme
Yup true - unless you decide to do a REALLY hot mash haha.
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 3:39 pm
by mckay75
Jayme wrote:I've been looking at this and pondering about it (don't think it's something I need right now), but one word of caution - watch the insulation temp of your wire. If you're using a 5500W element at 240V, that is 23A in essentially a 100C ambient. A typical conservative rating is 10 to 35C rise in your wire. For 10C you would need 8awg and 110C insulation minimum, and for 35C you would need 10awg (technically 11 if it were common) and 135C insulation minimum. Bundling is another consideration, but for 2 conductors, the de-rating should be 1. So if you're doing 10awg, you would probably have to go with 200C wire (typical ratings are 80, 90, 105, 125, and 200), which is frankly not all that common. Anyway, that's my 2 cents, take it for what its worth (part of my day job is designing cable harnesses).
Where would one source 200C wire? My intention with the heat stick I ordered was to use it for the boil.
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:51 pm
by Jayme
Search high temperature wire. Honestly I've never purchased it personally, just designed with it. Something Teflon insulated would work.
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:14 pm
by mthibodeau
Try anixter in Burnside, my only concern with them would be the possibility of a minimum order
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 9:14 pm
by Jayme
http://www.alliedelec.com/Images/Produc ... 110128.PDF
Likely the same issue as Anixter.. massive quantities
Re: Hot Rod Heat Stick powered Brewery
Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 9:16 pm
by Jayme