Scut_Monkey
Well-Known Member
Hey guys. It's been a while since I have posted on HBT but I have been busy with the wife and new son. So I have been brewing about 2 years on my Kal type system and I love it. However, I have had mild rusting on my HLT element since the get go. I think it screwed up my first two batches on the system back in the day and just the other day I finally got fed up with it after my last brew, ripped the element out and bent it in half in the bench vise to make my decision final. I had tried coating it with POR-15 twice and each time the POR-15 gets stripped off by the SS nut that goes over top and leads to more rust. I have read multiple other threads and have come to the conclusion (so far) that there are no great solutions to this rusting problem. So I'm looking at the following options......
1. Coat a regular element base in food grade silicone and see if that fixes it.
2. Install a magnesium anode.
3. Buy an element from Brewmation with a stainless base at $60 for the 5500watt element.
http://www.brewmation.com/Heating_Elements.html
I'm kind of at the point where I'm tired of screwing around with these rusting elements so I am leaning toward purchasing the all stainless element and being done with it. However, I can't really find much info about the elements anywhere. Their website doesn't provide much info and I never received a response to the questions I sent them. Has anyone tried these elements? Are they of good quality to the element itself and the base material? Has anyone tried using silicone or magnesium anodes and found they still didn't work? Any input would be helpful.... carry on.
1. Coat a regular element base in food grade silicone and see if that fixes it.
2. Install a magnesium anode.
3. Buy an element from Brewmation with a stainless base at $60 for the 5500watt element.
http://www.brewmation.com/Heating_Elements.html
I'm kind of at the point where I'm tired of screwing around with these rusting elements so I am leaning toward purchasing the all stainless element and being done with it. However, I can't really find much info about the elements anywhere. Their website doesn't provide much info and I never received a response to the questions I sent them. Has anyone tried these elements? Are they of good quality to the element itself and the base material? Has anyone tried using silicone or magnesium anodes and found they still didn't work? Any input would be helpful.... carry on.