I'm in the process of setting up a less hillbilly brewhouse using a couple of nice 15-gallon pots that have been welded for tri-clamp as well as bristling with weldless fittings. My goal is to use the HLT (with nice stainless HERMS coil) as a boil kettle as well, transferring from one to the other via one pump with a 2-way ball valve. I'll be transferring sparge water to an unused brew pot and gravity sparging or pumping for sparge and using a lauter grant. Either way it'll be better than the unwieldy way I've been doing things up to now. And I'll have mash capacity for a double batch so I won't have to double up the brew day to get 10-gallons
In the process of building out, I decided to utilize the tri-clamp fitting on the MLT/BK as originally used, with a 5500w heating element. That's where the fun starts. I've been working backward and building out a relatively simple control box so that I can use to set temp in the HLT for recirc/mashing and also regulate the boil once I get the wort sparged and collected. I've had to rethink the whole thing step by step as I realized that to do C, I really had to do B and to do that, A was pretty much a necessity, etc...all the way back to the breaker box (30 amp 240v GFCI breakers are NOT cheap, it turns out). I think I finally stopped spending money, though I'm pretty sure there's at least one more electronic component that I do need.
All that to say this: Who's running electric and how simple or elaborate is your system/controller? I could use some input and inspiration before I start finally putting things together.
