Electric Heat Source - HELP

[Milk-Boy]

Hi everyone
I'm making my first still and I'm having trouble figuring out how I am going to set up my heating system. My game plan was to use a screw in heating element that would commonly be found in a water heater. I'm unsure how to take this and convert it to be able to plug into the wall and run off my outlet. (I live in USA, if that matters on voltage/amp we use..?) Any advice or links that anyone knows would be a great help, thanks!

[Dnderhead]

wall out lets are 110 or 120 (all the same) mobel home heaters and some under counter water heaters.

[Coyote]

You have 2 leads on a 110 volt ( or 220 volt) water heater element

On a 110 volt you attach your black wire to one screw lead and white to the other
Ground the green wire to the boiler Plug it in to the wall and it will heat.

Generally the highest wattage 110 volt element you will find is 1500 watts. I was set up with 2 of these in a keg.
Worked fine but damn slow

Today I changed one out for a 220 volt 4500 watt element, from 80 degrees to 120 degrees at the top of the column
I went from an hour plus to 15 minutes I then unplugged the 220 volt and ran on the 110 volt - worked like a charm

NO you can not wire a 220 volt element to 110 and get it to work like it is wired to 220 volts

Coyote

[Milk-Boy]

Awesome, I'm going to have to try that.
Thanks Coyote

[Bobbydog]

Just be sure that you connect the ground to the boiler. Dont try to use one of those cheap 2 wire extension cords for your heating element. Make sure you use a good heavy 3 wire cord with the ground pin. I also use (2) 110v 1500watt heating elements for my 70 litre boiler, and it takes around 1.5 hours to come to a boil. I run both of mine for the full distillation, seems to be about perfect for my fractioning still. But yours could be different.

You can use a 220v element with a 110v source, but the heat output would be 1/4 of the elements rated wattage. So if you started with a 220v 4500 watt element and hooked it up to 110v outlet, you would get around 1100 watts of heat out of it..

Hope this helps.. good luck and let us know how you make out

Bob

[Bobbydog]

One more thing I just thought of. If you plan on using two 110v 1500 watt elements in your boiler, plan on having a seperate extension cord for each, as well as two different outlets to plug into that arent on the same circuit. Most house breakers are rated for 15 or 20 amps, which only allows you to plug one heating element into each outlet. Overloading your breakers and having them "pop" on you is at the least bad for the breakers and at worst a fire hazard.. Good luck

Bob

[juanmnmofo]

excellent posts. i just took my keg to a ss shop and they will be installing 2 1" couplings for screw in 1500w heaters from lowes. i'm not sure how these short suckers will behave in the keg. perhaps i should of went with a larger element and have more displacement in the liquid. i also got the elbow and valve attached to the bottom for draining purposes. yeah now the question is legs or casters? it has to sit higher cuz we dont; want the keg to balance on the valve. cheers

[MuleKicker]

3000w wont be that bad. 5500w heats my full keg to boil in 40min. You guys could check out the lounge for some ideas on heat controllers. We got plenty there. a good controller is key to making decent likker.

[Scurrillous]

Just be sure that you connect the ground to the boiler. Dont try to use one of those cheap 2 wire extension cords for your heating element. Make sure you use a good heavy 3 wire cord with the ground pin. ...
You can use a 220v element with a 110v source, but the heat output would be 1/4 of the elements rated wattage. So if you started with a 220v 4500 watt element and hooked it up to 110v outlet, you would get around 1100 watts of heat out of it..

I hope it's ok to revive an old thread.
I am building a portable immersion heater I can drop into the mash tun to preheat the water (speed it up).
Apparently they are not allowed to be sold in Canada and I need one.
I bought a 1500w 120v element and I am now putting it together. The quoted post from Bobbydog refers to one of the issues I am having with my build. I have a length of 12/3 SJOW cab tire I was going to use for a cord and I can't think of where to bond the ground.
By the way, sometimes as I read threads here, I go a bit crazy trying to figure out the acronyms; so for interested parties here is something I cribbed from wiki.

S = 600 Volt Service Cord
J = Junior Service - 300 Volt
T = Thermoplastic
E = Elastomer - thermoplastic that looks and feels like rubber
O = Oil Resistant Outer Jacket
OO = Oil Resistant Outer Jacket and Oil Resistant Insulation
V = Vacuum (typically used with vacuum cleaners and other portable cleaning equipment)
W = CSA Weather and Water Resistant (approved for indoor and outdoor use)

12/3..
12 is the "awg" or gauge and lower numbers mean higher amperage is possible. An awg of 12 means the capability of running 20 amps or 2400 watts.
3 is the number of conductors. In this case one hot, a neutral and a ground.

But back to the question.
Do I actually need to put a ground on a portable heater like this or can I skip it ?
Here is a picture of one that looks pretty much like mine.

Electric-Replacement-Water-Heater-Element-2E756_AS01.JPG (7.82 KiB) Viewed 5558 times

As you can see there are only two contacts.
If I were to connect the ground wire would it make any sense or do any good to attach it to the stainless nut underneath the black screw housing ?
Hoping someone can help.

[rad14701]

If I were to connect the ground wire would it make any sense or do any good to attach it to the stainless nut underneath the black screw housing ?

If you ground your boiler you are also grounding the element through the elements threads... This is standard practice with internal elements...

[Scurrillous]

It's not going through a boiler wall rad. It is an element intended to be dipped into the water.

[S-Cackalacky]

About the heating element you purchased from Lowes - I bought the same element and eventually exchanged it for a 5500W fold-back ULWD (ultra low watt density) element. I run the element on 110V electrical service so I get 1/4 the Wattage of the 5500W element which would be 1375W. I did this because I was concerned that I might have scorching with the very short 1500W element. I haven't finished my build, but I tested my 5 gallon stockpot boiler with about 4.5 gallons of fairly cold water (50 - 55 degrees F). It came to a full boil in 1 hr. 4 min. The time should be slightly less with a wash at a little higher starting temp.

There are also 6000W elements available, but not very common. Running on 110V service, this would give you the full 1500 Watts you're looking for with a lower Watt density.

For my ground wire I used a cannibalized 1/2 sized ss blank wall plate ($.99 at Lowes). I drilled a 1.125" hole with a hole saw for the ID, marked off an OD about a 1/2 inch outside the ID with a tab drawn on one side. I cut the OD out with sheet metal snips, ground away the burrs, hammered it out flat, and sanded all the edges smooth. I drilled about a 1/4 inch hole in the middle of the tab to hold a small bolt for attaching my ground wire. The tab just sort of sticks out one side of the hand-fashioned ss washer. When I installed the heating element, the grounding washer goes on next to the hex head of the element. You just need to assure that you have good metal to metal contact between the grounding washer and the pot/keg.

S-C

[Da Yooper]

I picked up my element from Menards --2000 watt , 120 volt. $10 works great for me.

[S-Cackalacky]

Whoops! Just saw your reply to Rad. Maybe just run a long piece of grounding wire to some convenient place on your boiler with a metal spring clip of some sort (alligator clip?) to hold it in place. You would also need to be sure to water proof the electrical connections. What you are proposing doesn't sound terribly safe. Why not just install the second element into the boiler - same as the main one - and simply unplug it after initial heat-up?

Just sayin',
S-C

[Scurrillous]

Thanks for the advice.
I think I need to be clearer about my intent.

This will be not be a permanent and attached heater connected through the boiler wall. Yes Cackalacky; but I am only needing it for the initial boil.
Here is a picture of it unfinished.

I have not finished the assembly but the general idea should be obvious now.
I threaded a 1" black pipe NPT coupler onto the element. A 1 1/4" ABS coupler fits over the black pipe fitting almost perfectly and will be epoxied to it. In the picture there is another coupling on the right hand side but instead there will be an ABS end cap with a hole drilled for the strain relief.

I want to be able to dangle this is in the tank during initial heating to augment the 1200 watt stove element. I just found a 20 gal tank at a scrap yard and while doing an AG mash the other night I got very frustrated at the heat up time.

[S-Cackalacky]

Well, guess I should learn to read a little more carefully. I went back and re-read your post and saw "mash tun" and now understand. I'm still not sure how safe that thing will be. If you have the electrical grounded to the base of the element, you may be OK. I don't know if you would still need to ground it to the pot - maybe someone else can answer that.

I know you've invested time and effort into what you've already done, but have you thought about using steam? Someone else here made a device they called a "steam masher" that used steam generated by their still boiler to heat/cook the grain in their mashing process. Here's a link to the topic if you're interested - http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =3&t=40164.

If your device works well for you, I hope you will post a detailed description of the build. I'm sure others might benefit from it.

S-C

BTW - Just curious, but how do you ever manage to stir that very tall pot?

[Antaean]

You have 2 leads on a 110 volt ( or 220 volt) water heater element

On a 110 volt you attach your black wire to one screw lead and white to the other
Ground the green wire to the boiler Plug it in to the wall and it will heat.

Generally the highest wattage 110 volt element you will find is 1500 watts. I was set up with 2 of these in a keg.
Worked fine but damn slow

Today I changed one out for a 220 volt 4500 watt element, from 80 degrees to 120 degrees at the top of the column
I went from an hour plus to 15 minutes I then unplugged the 220 volt and ran on the 110 volt - worked like a charm

NO you can not wire a 220 volt element to 110 and get it to work like it is wired to 220 volts

Coyote

so I know if I understand this correctly. you can attach a cord from the wall pug straight to the water heater element? It is recommended to use a controller but not needed?

[rad14701]

Well now...

That sure looks like an awful big vessel to be having on a kitchen stove... There is no way in hell that I would put 20 gallons of anything on a stove top...

That black pipe fitting isn't exactly food grade and will rust rapidly, whether used for mashing or distilling... Stainless steel or copper, just like if you were distilling...

I think you really need to step back and rethink your intentions... It doesn't sound or appear as though you have considered much of any safety concerns and you really should... The best help I can offer is to slow down, do a bit more research, and then try devising a better plan of action...

[PsychDoc]

It seems to me that this plan may have merit on a smaller scale. Could a nut be used with threads on the element to secure the element to the side of the thin-walled stainless steel pot? This could be used as a boiler on rads design, I'm thinking?

Edit first, then post

[rad14701]

It seems to me that this plan may have merit on a smaller scale. Could a nut be used with threads on the element to secure the element to the side of the thin-walled stainless steel pot? This could be used as a boiler on rads design, I'm thinking?

I use a 1" copper female fitting soldered into the side of a stock pot...

[PsychDoc]

Well there you go...
And to think I don't have to ask more questions because I did a search and found my answers, i.e. how?
Hopefully I will have the opportunity to test these ideas soon.

Now back to the program already in progress

[Scurrillous]

So Rad. Yeah. I been mulling things over since I read your post.
I knew the black pipe wasn't the best idea but I was in a hurry and Home Depot didn't have any 1" copper couplings. I grabbed it off the shelf and screwed it on. Then I turned around and behind me was the abs... an even worse idea. (not food safe)

Tomorrow I am going to visit a proper plumbing supply and do it right. I may use a bit of plastic to transition between the copper and the handle but it would be PVC or better yet CPVC .

I know that huge pot looks ridiculous sitting on the stove. I only put 9 gallons into it though and would never put more.

I just looked at the steam system Cackalacky and It has got me thinking. Thanks for that. Maybe I can incorporate the element into one.

[PsychDoc]

Could you use one of these
"CAMCO Element Adapter Kit"