Anyone ever hear of a 3-heat (2 phase) element?

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mattd2

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Joined
Sep 23, 2009
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Location
NZ
Got my keg - Check
Got my welder (person not equipment) - check
Got my element - uh I have a problem!

So over in NZ our single phase is straight 230V, no 2x 110V circuits. Now I am looking for a element for my keggle and my power restrictions is a 20A breaker. I have had a look round and it seems the largest element I can find is 3kW (13A draw), and from on here this seems to be getting pretty close to the bare minimum you would want in a keggle. Until a supplier told me they have a 4kW (17A draw) model, but this is a 3-heat (2 phase) element. What it looks like it is 2 elements in one fitting, and I am assuming you would wire in 2 phases of the 3 phase supply (one to each "element"). Has anyone heard of this before? I would be looking at wiring the "elements" in paralelle so that each one gets 230V.
If this is the case it would be pretty sweet as it would allow a nice simple control of the boil - 4kW to bring it up to temp then 2kW (turn one "element" off) to maintain the boil.
The other question is it is a nickel coated copper element, I haven't read anything specifically damning these but have read that ss/incaloy is more prefered - any reason not to use a nickle coated copper element. I have read that the nickle can be eaten away by the wort expsing the cooper but this seemed more of an issue of nickel in the brew not exposed copper (I mean a lot of breweries use copper tuns/kettles). One solution proposed to this is to actually desolve the nickle before use, is this a good/bad idea?

Cheers,
Matt

Edit: Just asked a sparky at work about the 2 phase element and he confirmed that it is most likely 2 elements in one fitting. I will purchase and check this thing out. He did warn me to check my rating on my recepticals in the wall.
 
Update:
Element got here on Xmas eve. Yep it is 2x 2 kW elements in one package. Talk to my old man about it and we realised the 3 heat bit is about the fact you can run it at 4 kW (both elements in parallel), 2 kW (one element) & 1 kW (both elements in series).
Cut my keggle top yesterday (freehand - not as bad as I expected!)
Now just need to get the element and drain fitted!
 
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