Spike Brewing HLT Not Firing up

[Rob2010SS]

I have the Spike Brewing 20 gallon electric system. I went to go fire up the HLT to get my water heated for later.

When the element is going strong, there's usually bubbles coming off of it and you can hear the whirring of it.

I turned it on today and there's no sound and only a couple bubbles on the element and it's not heating - normally anyway. In about 10 min, it went from 62 to 64 degrees.

Any idea what's wrong or what I should be looking at?

System has ran flawlessly to this point

 

[Cato1507]

I'd start with a volt meter to isolate the problem, checking the receptacle first to make sure that its delivering the current to the plug.

After that it's the connection to the element. On my boil coil the plug into the kettle would make that easy, but I'm unfamiliar with Spike's system to know.

If you're unfamiliar or uncomfortable with using a voltmeter then you might have a friend that's handy that way and get him to come over and help you out.

One has to be extremely careful when working around live current, and if you've not done it then get help. Safety first

 

[Rob2010SS]

Yeah I was just going to post a follow up comment that my electrical know how is slim to none and I don't have a volt meter.

 

[Mybuddypete]

I'd unplug everything, especially the controller from the wall/240v source and grab a screwdriver and tighten everything up. Check the wires for solid connections.

 

[Rob2010SS]

I didn't tighten everything. I ended up pulling the elements, swapping them (BK --> HLT and HLT --> BK) and sure as sh**, they both worked. I'm not sure what the hell happened when I tried to heat the water in the morning.

However, I will say the HLT not firing up was a blessing in a disguise. Because of that, I was able to find that the HLT coil had come loose on the inlet connection and anything that I tried to run through that coil was leaking into the HLT. Would have ruined the whole batch had that element fired up in the morning and had I proceeded with the brew.