Blichmann Boilcoil Help!!

It looks like you have to buy their tower of power to control the coil or hire an electrician to provide an on and off switch with gfi to control the boil. I imagine the tower of power has a means to control the temp too. If an electrician did this for you he or she would have to provide this control also. I would go with the tower of power.

 

Just out of curiosity, where did you by it from? Seems like you needed more customer service than was provided.

 

Bummer. I guess they need to clarify that on their site. In this case, it's a pretty new product, so I imagine there's not a lot of consumer info out there yet on the product.

I looked at the website and agree that it doesn't sound like the tower is mandatory -- it might be worth contacting the company to find out if it truly is mandatory. If not, maybe they can give you some additional instruction. If it is, at least you can let them know politely that their web page misled you.

 

About 35 years ago, I bought a British made Bruheat boiler. Originally designed for mashing, it was a bucket equipped with a 3000W heating element and came with a temperature control. I was going to use it strictly for a boiler and did not need to adjust temperature at all, so I simply bypassed the controller entirely and it worked fine (actually it still works, after all these years...but I long ago replaced the bucket with a converted keg).
You should definitely check with Blichman, but I'm betting that you don't need the controller.
I didn't even install an on/off switch in the Bruheat element.

 

Give them a couple days, they have been at the NHC in San Diego, which wrapped up last night.

 

Look at the bright side, you only have to spend $600 more just to get the thing to work.

 

Does this thing operate on 110V? If so, I don't see why it couldn't be plugged into any kitchen GFCI outlet, if all the control you want is on or off.

Disclaimer: I'm not a licensed electrician. If you fry the coil or yourself, it's not my fault.

ETA: I just looked at the manual. Proprietary connector it looks like.

 

It doesn't use a standard plug

 

I hope you will post what you learn. As I said, this is a pretty new product so I don't think there is a lot of consumer buzz oun it yet.

 

I suppose without the temperature control box, the boil could become too vigorous. If the control box is required, they need to make it obvious to consumers. Not everyone is a Blichman engineer.

 

Ask Blichman if you can use a third party temperature controller and a thermowell. That would cost less than $100. Not sure why you couldn't.

 

That's odd. I could have sworn the manual talked about some kind of twist connecter at the controller. If it's 110V and it's a regular 3-prong connector, I can't imagine what could go wrong by plugging it into a GFCI outlet. Unless the unregulated current draw is very high (higher than a typical circuit can handle), which would be a bad way to design a product IMO.

Disclaimer: I'm not a licensed electrician. If you fry the coil or yourself, it's not my fault.

 

A friend of mine runs an electric rig. His controller constantly turns his coil on and off to maintain the boil. If left to go without a controller it would most likely scortch the wort.

A Johnston controller would probably work just fine, assuming you can set the temp that high. If not I'm sure there's other options out there for much less.