Large electricty bill due to my brewing...

[KEG]

haha, never.. 2 years ago i knew nothing about brewing

[Boonie]

And apparently if you turn the Microwave off, the ones with a clock, I have heard it will save $60 per year

Per year? Maybe in your life time?

agreed.. they use stuff all. let's conservatively assume 5 watts of power (which is more than it would be):

rough guess of 15c per kilowatt-hour (means you use 1 kilowatt for 1 hour, get charged 15 cents)
5 watts would take 200 hours for 1 kilowatt-hour of power to be used.

$6.57 per year on that example - keeping in mind it's most likely far less than 5 watts.


on the basis of $60 per year and 15c/kwH, it'd need to continuously be using nearly 50 watts

I knew it sounded dodgy. My mate saw it on tele.........Channel 9 program, like a mythbuster thing.......had that Stephen Bloke who does the weather on the Today show...maybe (What was the name of it?)......anyway, he turns his Microwave because of this theory , I don't as I thought it was bollocks.

Cheers

Boonie

[warra48]

Of course it's bollocks.
It's another one of the greenie fanatics' attempts to make individuals feel guilty about climate change/greenhouse/environment etc etc.
It's easier for them to attack individuals than to take on big business and commerce and international governments, although IMHO they pollute far more than all the individuals in the world combined.
Having said that, I believe in Affirmative Action for gay whales, and also Oceanrights for bottlenosed dolphins.
Aaaawww shucks, I think I must have another beer to drown my sorrows at the sorry state of the world.

[Tipsy]

I believe in Affirmative Action for gay whales

I could be wrong, but aren't these whales the sole reason for the dwindling whale population?

[warra48]

I believe in Affirmative Action for gay whales

I could be wrong, but aren't these whales the sole reason for the dwindling whale population?

Eeeerrr, no, but that's why Nippon is doing whale research. They are culling the gay whales, and leaving the virile stud stock to replenish the oceans.

[drsmurto]

Trying to drag this thread kicking and screaming back on topic. As fascinating as the sexual orientation of the whale population is.....

In addition to keeping an eye on electricity use the other impact brewing has is on water use. Lots of arguments for AG brewers to be no chilling. I use a plate chiller so was concerned about how much water i have been using. Got my 6 monthly water bill and it was ~$100. Cant remeber how much water we used but the comparison to the previous owners show we used 1/3 of the amount of water for the same period. And that included accidentally leaving taps on that leaked water onto the vegie patch......

This weekend was the first time i hooked up the rainwater tanks to a pump. The outlet from the plate chiller went back into the downpipe from the roof and so i used 0L of water to chill my beer. And with the water temps so low at the moment i was able to chill on a single pass at full throttle to 18C. I played around with the kettle tap and could get the wort temp down to 12 so i think lagers are going to be on the to do list.

Cheers
DrSmurto

[rwh]

Sounds good man. Buying a house is still a few years off for me, but once I do, you can bet that there'll be water tanks galore. Having said that, at this time of year it's pretty good; I used around 60L of water to chill two AG batches yesterday, then used that same water for cleaning afterwards (nice warm water). I also skipped my shower for the day, so I reckon I came up pretty neutral. I'm also looking forward to the day when I can get up the motivation to do multiple AG batches in a row, so that I can use the cooling water from the first batch to mash in the second; that way you're reusing both the energy and the water!

[drsmurto]

I reckon i use more than 200L to chill with as i turn the tap on full. That way i have greater flexibility over the resulting wort temp. I am sure there are areas where i can improve my carbon footprint in relation to brewing but with 100% green energy and rainwater i am getting there.

[rwh]

Yeah... I only take it down to around 30°C, but with an immersion chiller it's hard to get much lower without using an order of magnitude more water. The brewfridge does the rest, with the consequent extra power being used (generally overnight so at least it's off-peak power). But yeah, the trade-off of power vs water is an interesting one. Green power too tho.

[warra48]

Yeah... I only take it down to around 30°C, but with an immersion chiller it's hard to get much lower without using an order of magnitude more water. The brewfridge does the rest, with the consequent extra power being used (generally overnight so at least it's off-peak power). But yeah, the trade-off of power vs water is an interesting one. Green power too tho.

I find the same with my immersion chiller. Once the kettle is down to 30ºC, any further chilling slows right down. I can drop it down to the low 20ºC range in another 5 to 10 minutes, by using what I call my pre-chiller. All I do is route my water through another smaller copper coil in a plastic bin, filled with some water and lots of ice. The ice I make in used butter/margerine containers, a couple a day, over the week before brewing. I am happy to pitch wheats at that temperature.
For ales, I also find that if I put the fermenter into the fridge, it will be at 18ºC the next morning. I can't be bothered brewing lagers, except maybe once a year.

[Trough Lolly]

It's nearly lager brewing season here at Chez Farrer! I can get a boiled wort down to pitching temps no sweat with the CFWC and icy cold Canberra water. The lager room / garage is closing in on the right temps - it got up to 1C on the way to work today - top temp was 15C...When winter is well and truly here, I might not have the exact temperature stability that a fridgemate controller gives, but I can keep a fermenter steady at 10C in the garage no probs at all....they didn't have fridgemate controllers when they wrote the reinheitsgebot!!

Prost,
TL

[drsmurto]

And once the brew is fermenting is it generate its own heat. I find that once the krausen has formed i need only wrap the brew in a sleeping bag and it maintains ale brewing temps without the need for a heat source. I suspect with lagers i will forgo the cover and leave it in the dark corner of the garage and see how it goes temp wise.

[Clean Brewer]

On the subject of Electricity usage and costs with having multiple fridges, I have just setup my fridge mate and have just observed how it works.

Question is - If your fridges are set-up with a fridge mate and you have them set up at a controlled temperature and the fridge switches off when it is at within 1 degree of that set temperature and switches back on as soon as it is 1 degree out of the set temperature, the electricity used should be far less than if your fridge was running normally with the temp based on what it is set on the inside dial(without using fridgemate)?

Or, is it because you dont have fridgemates on all fridges you are using and/or the fridges are basically worn-out and working to hard and/or youse are always in and out of the fridge?

Thoughts/answers?

[rwh]

1. Pretty much any increased efficiency would be due to the compressor being turned off more. So in other words, if you are setting your fridgemate warmer than you previously had the fridge, you'll probably save power.

2. If you are using a fridge as a brewfridge, then it'll generally use less power (as you'll set it to 18 or 12 most likely, which is warmer than 4). EXCEPT that if you put your brew in when it's 30°C, then it'll have to do a fair bit of work to get that down to fermenation temperature, which'll cost you.

3. I've noticed that my fridge draws more power when it first starts its cooling cycle. Not sure how much of an effect this has on overall power usage, but if you stick the temp probe to the outside of your fermenter instead of having it free in the air, the increased thermal inertia of the beer rather than the air surrounding it will reduce how often the fridge cycles (it'll run for longer each time it switches on). Whether this is significant or not, I don't know.

Essentially, the cooling cycle of your fridge is the only thing that's important here. Everything else is small change. I've noticed my fridge can draw anywhere between 80 and 180W when it's cooling, and I think it's a relatively efficient one. My kegerator is pretty small and is set to 7°C so it really draws next to nothing unless I'm putting in a new keg.

[James L]

Yeh i agree with RWH,

If fridge has to run for extended periods of time to get the temp of the wort/beer down, it will use a heap of power.. once the beer/wort is at that temp... its takes bugger power to keep it there.

[Clean Brewer]

Hello all,

Thats understandable, I put my first lager down tonight to brew in a temp controlled fridge(12c), pitched Saf-23(1 pack) at 20c, placed fermenter in the fridge and decided to just leave the temp probe dangling near the fermenter so the fridge would work to get ambient temperature down to 12c without working to hard quite quickly, thoughts were that if I stuck probe(insulated) to the side of fermenter from the start, the fridge will run constantly(cant be good) until the brew itself reaches 12-13c from 20c.

I would assume this is better to do as the fridge will not be running constantly for god knows how long and the fridge will kick in once the brew has slowly warmed the fridge up 2 degrees from ambient temperature until both wort temperature and ambient temperature have stabilised at 12c.

I will after about 15 hrs(brew is in fridge at work, and once I return), attached the insulted probe to the side of the fermenter to get a more accurate temperaure of the wort and the fridge can then work based on the wort temperature, not the ambient temperature.

What do others do in relation to this???????

[rwh]

I stick the probe straight on the side of the fermenter. It still takes a few hours to get it down.

[ryan]

attached the insulted probe to the side of the fermenter

[Boonie]

attached the insulted probe to the side of the fermenter

That's hilarious..............

[ryan]

Wonder what he said to it?