Cracked heating element on immersion heater. uh oh

So i received a large amount of brewing equipment secondhand and in that cache of brew weapons was a screwplug immersion heater for a 75gallon hlt. It looks to be exactly the same as this from mcmastercarr

(http://www.mcmaster.com/ctlg/DisplC...dition=115&ScreenWidth=1280&McMMainWidth=1075)

there was a severe crack on the bottom of the element. so i get trigger happy and started soldering on a patch....but I have no idea whether or not what i used is brewing safe. I feel completely retarded at this point because I dont know if this element was worthwhile to start with and i might have just made it worthless.

Does anyone know if there are safe solders for this application? or am I just screwed?

Won't solder melt off again when you fire it up?

Surely the simplest thing would be to replace it?

Maybe silver solder would withstand the heat...
Where exactly is the crack?
Pics?

Don't waste your time. Just buy a new one.

So it's just like a 200-4500 heating element? That's like 20 bucks. Just replace it.
Or is it something different? The link is pretty generic.

Well, the element shouldn't get too much hotter than the liquid that it's immersed in so I doubt it would melt 400F solder. However, I agree that the elements themselves are cheap enough to replace.

Bobby_M said:

Well, the element shouldn't get too much hotter than the liquid that it's immersed in so I doubt it would melt 400F solder. However, I agree that the elements themselves are cheap enough to replace.

Click to expand...

400F? pah! That's my mash temp!

Is this on the actual heating portion of the element? If the ceramic is cracked it is no longer electrically insulated. A solder patch may keep the liquid out but you could still leak current to the liquid if the solder is in contact with the conductive bit in the element.

Toss it and buy a replacement.