Where to find heating/heater bands in Europe?

[Michel]

Good morning all, I hope you are doing well today!

I am using so far a normal resistance heater so far on my 15G kettle, but I was reading about the benefit of the bands heaters.

Benefits are:
- No contact between heating element and the product
- Easier to clean
- Less risk of scorching

What is your feedback? Is it worth the investment?
If yes, which provider to use? And any idea where to buy it in Europe (240V)?

Thanks a lot in advance for your advice!
Michel

[Salt Must Flow]

What is a, "a normal resistance heater"?

I'm not sure exactly what band heaters you're looking for, but here's a recent thread.

[sw_reijnders]

the problem with band heaters is that they are designed to heat a barrel or drum just a couple of degrees
they are not designed to really boil a liquid which need a lot more power.

there are guys on the dutchdistillers forum (i don't know from which part of belgium you are and how well your dutch is )
but they are experimenting with heating pads from aliexpress

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000448588000.html

[welly]

Can't imagine you'd be waiting for anything less than a day to heat up wort/wash/liquid in a kettle or get it anywhere close to mash temperature, using a band heater that's anything less than an industrial sized unit.

[Michel]

Thank you for the responses so far! I was thinking about something like this: https://brewhaus.com/distilling-supplie ... ium-kettle, so a "side band heater", not an "under the barrel"

[kennstminet]

In German language you would search for "Fassheizung" or "Fassheizmanschette".
https://freek-fassheizungen.de/fassheizungen/
In English you could search for "barrel heater" or "circular heater".
https://www.pmseurope.com/products/barr ... -terminals
I strongly believe that it is not appropriate for destillation.
Please be so kind to buy one and report.

[jonnys_spirit]

16g boiler takes about an hour to heat up for a strip run with 5500W of power.

Personally I’d recommend planning for two internal element ports on your boiler and setting up with two ULWD 5K5W elements @ 240V with power controller for quick heatup and quicker strips if at all possible.

Scorching isn’t an issue even with minimal clearing. If you want to cook on grain there are options.

The various bands look good in concept except for the limited power.

Cheers and good luck!
-j

[elbono]

Those are commonly used in the plastic processing industry where they are called "mica band heaters". A google search for mica band heater supplier Europe gives a lot of results. Tempco is the only brand I recognize but that only means they have a presence on this side of the pond.

You would need more than one to get reasonable heat up times, 5kw or more is normal for a 60 liter keg. They need to fit the surface very closely on a clean surface or they'll overheat and burn out. You will also need to insulate your boiler very well since the heater is on the outside and you'll still end up with low efficiency (need more power/heaters for same result).

I thought about these when I went electric but quickly decided to use immersion heaters instead.

[EricTheRed]

https://reliablestore.co.za/products/si ... a432046b01

https://ebkcontainers.com/silicone-rubb ... 15-gallon/

Heating pads just the heating cable in packaging. There are hundreds of the.

[Michel]

the problem with band heaters is that they are designed to heat a barrel or drum just a couple of degrees
they are not designed to really boil a liquid which need a lot more power.

there are guys on the dutchdistillers forum (i don't know from which part of belgium you are and how well your dutch is )
but they are experimenting with heating pads from aliexpress

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000448588000.html

Dank u well!

[sw_reijnders]

meer dan welkom
https://dutchdistillers.nl

[Michel]

Team, a huge thank you for all your replies.
I realize that well-prepared videos (like this one: had an influence on my ideas of using band heaters. But then I took into consideration:
- I could not find the "great" band heaters products as I was hoping for: there are several vendors out there, but I could not find great "price for value"
- God, traditional, heaters seem to be working fine, especially with my type of mash
- My current solution works fine, and I want to focus on another aspect (cuts) rather than improving the heating..

So I decided not to pursue that idea further for now.
Thank you again for sharing the tips, ideas and experience!
Michel