Heating PBW?

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ylpaul2000

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Hello all,

I use a keggle as my HLT. It has a HERMS coil and a 5500 watt ultra low density heating element installed with a weldless fitting. After about 6 months of use the element fried and upon closer inspection I found it to be coated with a thick solid coating of a white porcelain like substance. After hitting it several time with a piece of wood the coating shattered and fell off. I can only assume this was from heating PBW in the HLT during cleaning cycles. Any thoughts?
 
I get this as well. I don't think it's from pbw. I think it's from the minerals in the water. After a brew Do a pbw rinse if you want and then do an acid rinse. I use sani-clean. Heat and recirculate with it just covering the element. I usually do two to 3 brews before doing an acid cleaning. It removes the white stuff off the element.
 
It's probably lime scale, it's a problem in a lot of boilers, water heaters, etc. Even a thin layer of about an 1/8th inch is like several inches of foam insulation as far as R value goes.
 
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