hot water tank

Has anyone ever tried using a hot water heater that can heat up to 180 degrees for the mash and sparge? In theory, if I can add 170 degrees hot water directly from a hot water tank I can eliminate the burner process. Am I crazy? I have a large keg insulator that I would be able to hold the temperature no problem.
Any thoughts on the idea?

My understanding is that there can be a lot of rust/sediment in these tanks.....but that could just be hearsay.....just my $0.02

Quite a few people have made HLT's that use electric heating elements. These heating elements are the same thing that's used in hot water heaters. Though I don't think I've seen anyone use a hot water heater directly, I don't see anything wrong with the basic premise as long as it's clean, you can heat an appropriate amount of water, etc.

will it be able to heat it fast enough?

and are you talking about a mini hot water heater, or a giant 50 gallon unit that'll waste a TON of electricity just to get your 8 gallons of mash/sparge water?

I have two water heater elements mounted thru the side of a keg (my hlt) and they heat 15 gal of water up pretty quickly, and with just one i can maintain a rolling boil if i wanted to. But i would steer away from using an actual hot water heater tank, you could make one cheap enough from an aluminum or SS pot and a heater element.

Cheers

Edit: here is the inside-

Arent hot water heaters under pressure? I would be cautious of going that route (though I am no plumber!)

Greg

For the past 5 years have been using a homemade inline heater.
Plumbed a 4 kw water heater element in end of 3 inche steel pipe about 5 foot long. The pipe has closed ends which contains a water and antifreeze mixture. About 20 feet of 3/8 inch copper tubing winds around the heating element, up and beyond and exits and enters with compression fittings. Thus the hot liqour only sees the inside of the copper tubing.
Safety is essential. I installed a blow off valve just like on the water heater in your house. A pressure guage, and pressure switch to drop out the 240 volts. Thermocouple and pid controller that monitors and controls the temp. Works absolutely flawless.
Turn it on and in 2 minutes have half gallon per minute 170 degree hot liqour. Only draw back is can't acidify the sparge water. Instead add to the mash water.
If I knew how, would attach a photo or 2. Copied the idea from a fellow on the HBD.
r

You can send the pic to me or any other member and we can post it for you. or you can hit the attach a picture button on the reply page. [ IMG]http://your picture url here [/IMG] should look something like that. minus the space in the first

Maybe not the traditional tank system, but an on demand water heater may be a great idea, You can get them in gas or electric.
For example
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=89263-1136-AE3.4&lpage=none

Much cheaper to use one of these for around $20