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Induction Brewing - Review

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What’s all the fuss about right? What’s the point when I can use gas? Well, We decided to give it ago. 

Until recently, I had a brew kettle with a kettle element inside which was then attached to a temperature controller. The time came get a new kettle and it was my opportunity to take some time to think about the equipment I wanted to invest in for the long run, instead of spending some money on other equipment in another year or so. With that In mind, I wanted to look at using an induction burner. 

I live in England and having the ability to brew outside during Autumn & winter (I should probably just right year round, too wet and cold) is very unlikely, so that rules out a gas burner. I could probably carry on with the kettle element but that would mean drilling a couple holes in my new boil kettle, that sounds crazy. So the next logical solution was to turn to induction. 

I’ve brewed twice with the buffalo induction burner (3kw) and I i’m pretty impressed with the results so far. For those who aren’t aware, induction burners use magnetic induction to heat up the contents instead of the traditional thermal conduction. That means that you will need to use kettles or pan that are magnetic otherwise you might be slightly disappointed.  

Pros

There are a lot of pros when it comes to induction brewing such as having the ability to brew inside without destroying your equipment, consistency, less parts but here are some of highlights that blew me away. 

Speed to boil: 

I’m normally boiling about 26 litres when I brew and getting that kind of volume to a boil using just a kettle element can take some time (not to say energy too). Using the buffalo burner for the first time, I was simply blown away at the time it took to get to boiling. It now takes around 10 minutes to get from 70 degrees celsius to 102 instead of the 20-25 minutes it took before. 

Cheaper energy: 

Whilst I don’t have concrete figures for my setup, Home Brew Academy shared that the average price when brewing a batch of beer with propane is somewhere in the region of $5, compared to $0.60 with induction based on the electric rate of 6.6 cents/kWh. That’s a huge difference.

Cons

It’s worth saying that I’m not getting paid for this review, neither was this a free item I received from a company to review, I paid for it using my hard earned cash. With that being said, there aren’t too many cons to talk about. 

Upgrade Kettle: 

If you’re wanting to get into induction brewing, you will need to ensure your kettle has a flat magnetic bottom, otherwise it simply won’t work. 

Cost: 

I was pretty lucky, I found the Buffalo burner (other brands available) on sale on Amazon for about £180. That sort of price makes it pretty difficult to the average joe to justify purchasing.

Conclusion:  

If you’re looking for a solution that allows you to brew inside without having lots of additional equipment and cables floating around then look no further, go pick up an induction burner today. Just make sure you’ve got a magnetic bottom kettle, there are too many people out there that didn’t look into it before buying.