Silicone heat pads

[HelmetHeid]

Anyone ever tried using these as a heat source?

Was thinking I might try it out on my old still - stick three of them to the pot with some insulation over them. Quite like the flexibility - can remove them if I want to use gas, and easier than modifying a hotplate.

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[kiwi Bruce]

How hot do they get? Hot enough to boil a pot?

[HelmetHeid]

I'm not 100% sure, but it's basically the same material as they use for oil drum heaters. And those go up to about 150C, I think

[still_stirrin]

The description says “750W”.

That would take a looooooooooooooong time to bring a wash to boil. You might melt the silly cone pad by then.

Probably better options out there.
ss

[HelmetHeid]

Aye, 750w would be way too weak. But they're fairly cheap so I figured I'd try three of them on my smaller old pot still

[Manc]

Hi

I've used them to heat a tile in my fermenting chamber they get hot quick never thought of what your proposing should imagine it would work they melted the HDPE barrel with heat transferred through a porcelain tile I'd love to hear how you get on.

Lee

[NZChris]

If they are heating above the level of the charge you might be in trouble.

[HelmetHeid]

Aye, I guess I'd probably have all three going at 2.25kw to get the thing up to temp and probably for a stripping run, then for a spirit run I'd maybe only use one or two of the pads for between 750w and 1.5kw. I doubt that'd be too much power

[Manc]

You could put a voltage controller on one of the pads and that could give you an adjustable wattage of 0 to 1500w for your spirit run.

I checked the one I have and its only 200w. When I melted the plastic barrel I was trying to raise to a mash temperature 67°C in a 30litre barrel. Not my Finest hour and it took a lot of cleaning up but hey if we don't experiment it would be boring.

Lee