I’m sitting here at my bar looking at my indoor electric turkey fryer when it hits me…All that element is, is a 110v heat stick. It’ll bring 3 gal of oil to 400* in about an hour. So why shouldn’t it bring 8 gal of strike water to 165 or so in that same hour? Who here uses a 110v heat stick to heat strike water? What size element are you using, and what kind of times and temps are you getting? Thanks!
I use a “bucket heater” to heat my MT and HLT overnight. They are controlled by a RANCO thermostat so they are ready to go in the morning. (There is some heat stratification so I recirculate the water before mashing in.)
I have a motor mounted on the lid of my HLT that is connected to this SS paint stirrer:
It’s on a temp controller that is daisy-chained to the HLT control. So, it only runs if the water temp is over 150F AND the HLT bucket heater is heating as well. That way it does not run all the time during the run-up to strike temp. My water is ready to go within 1 degree F when I walk into the brewhouse. That’s nice when I come home from my day job and want to start brewing pronto.
That is what I do with the bucket heater, recirculate with the pump. You can also insulate your tun/HLT to make it get to temp a little faster. It is a wonderful thing to go to the brew system first thing in the morning and mash in with the grains crushed the night before.
Edit - I heat the mash tun. The bucket heater is then put in the HLT when we mash in, and that helps get the sparge water up to temp. Saves on some propane.