Condo Brewing

If I were in your situation, I'd investigate electric brewing. Right now I have a gas range in an apartment, but used to have an electric stove. You can either build your own heat stick or buy some electric elements. Seems like they have a decent enough following.

 

I think they are just heating elements used to bring your wort to a boil.

 

I use a heat stick in my apartment and can easily bring 8.5ish gallons to a boil. I could probably easily do more if I had a kettle that could hold it.
http://www.3d0g.net/brewing/heatstick

 

I'm an apartment brewer and I do 5 gallon batches. The boil takes a little longer than it used to when I was on gas, but it's not that bad actually. My pot takes up about 1.5 burners which helps. You might also want to consider 3 gallon batches. I did those for a while and it worked out pretty well for many reasons beyond just getting to a boil faster.

 

I started off brewing in a condo and used a heat-stick to supplement my gas range at the time... The heat-stick works awesome, but it's scary as heck to use.

Now that I have a house and brew in the garage I still have a use for my heat-stick, it's great to use for my mash if I need to bring the temp up a degree or two and don't want to add any hot liquor

 

I'm limited to an older-model electric range in my apartment as well. Since I can't do large volume boils I do 2.5-3 gallon AG batches. I prefer it to the 5 gallon extract batches I was doing because I enjoy brewing more often and having a larger variety of beer on hand.

 

Honestly, I was worried at first about using the heatstick, but use a protected circuit and it is no big deal. I love my heatstick and I actually changed when I still could have been using propane. I think the heatstick is superior. I don't recommend propane to anyone that is willing to put some effort into gathering pieces and assembling a heatstick.

 

Another option is to split the boil between two pots.

 

Heatstick changed my life. It is quite easy to make and HIGHLY effective. Somehow a buddy of mine was able to fry mine and I don't know exactly how. Using some clamps I keep the heatstick suspended in my wort so that it never touches the kettle at all. I can't recommend this enough.

 

Or...split the boil between two condos.

 

Ignore the rules and put an open flame on the balcony.

(This BA takes absolutely no responsibility for loss of property, injury, or any fees/ legal implementations of breaking said rulez.)

 

So what is the average time it will take to bring a 6 or 6.5 gallon batch to a decent boil with a heatstick?

 

I have an electric range and am able to get 6 gallons to a nice boil by positioning the pot on two burners and cranking them. If that fails, I would also advise electric.