Hot Water Cylinder as a boiler?

[farmershort]

Hi All,

Apologies if this has been asked before.. I'm very new...

I was wondering whether anyone has tried making a boiler out of a standard domestic hot water tank? It seems like the cheapest most obvious soultion to me, but all of the pics I have seen show either plastic or Stainless Vessels.

My thought is, that they already contain a 3KW heating element, and an inbuilt copper coil (normally for the hot tap water), which could be used to cool down the wort after brewing. Most are also already insulated with 3" of foam. With all this in mind, they seem like the ideal thing for an amatuer brewer... I recognise that there may be an issue with the pressure, and fitting of filters etc, as there's no lid, but cutting the top off a copper tank isn't beyond the wit of man... well, hopefully not anyway.

I would very much welcome your thoughts and suggestions - please stop me if I'm about to make a big mistake by going down this road.

[jubby]

I had that thought too, I think it's a great idea. the only concern would be the health risk, as copper is dissolved into the wort during the boil due to it's acidic nature. I don't know of it's bad for you or not, but if i were going to take this rout, I would go with a stainless tank. They are the same as the copper tanks but handle high water pressures. I have one fitted in my house which was replaced about 2 years ago due to a fault. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me keep the old one as it had to go back for diagnosis I imagine they would be difficult to find.

Having said all that, there are still plenty of traditional breweries out there using copper boilers.

[CJBrew]

Copper is an excellent material for a kettle if you can afford it.

[farmershort]

I have managed to find a thread about copper poinsoning, but I can't find any old threads with real exampled of copper boilers being used. The copper poisoning argument was truly put to bed with many many images of copper boilers in industrial breweries.

Does anyone have any photo's of thier copper boiler? has anyone on this forum done this before? I found one post by a newbie about cutting the bottom off a hot water cylinder, and inverting it... but no details after just one reply..

I'd love to go stainless from the off, but it just costs so bloody much... I'm even toying with the idea of using those round 55ltr plastic food containers - there's a few good threads on them - I just hate the idea of 2 heating elements stuck through some plastic, with 40ltrs of boiler water a few mm away from a main kettle lead...

I bought myself a buffalo tea urn (similar to a burco)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWNX:IT

but I think I'm going to come unstuck, co's there's no quick way of emptying out the water into the mash tun, and also it's thermostat turns off the heater once a brief boil has been achieved. Also, it's only 20 litres, and all the recipes I now have are for 25 litres - maybe this doesn't matter? can i just dilute after the boil.

please, I emplor you all... help me...

[CJBrew]

Well you can probably open up the boiler and defeat the thermostat.

You can probably also take the tap right off and replace it with something better. Look at the Burco conversion threads. I'm in the middle of doing just this -- only removed the taps of my Burcos last night...

You're right though, it is a bit small. You can always do a concentrated boil and water it down with cooled boiled water in the fermenter. Although you could find you have not got quite enough room to boil 20l of wort properly.

[farmershort]

thanks cj, that's helpfull...

I plan to do a few test brew with the buffalo - by trying to defeat the thermostat - just a bit scary to try without massive amounts of research.

This has all started as part of on ongoing self-sufficieny ambition. We rear animals (used to have a fair few sheep, now just a few pigs), and the usual veg plot, then It struck about feb time this year - I need to grow hops!

clearly the first year harvest was a bit naff - about 1 40 pint brew's worth, but I want to everything ready for next years harvest...

The main thing is, I want to do most of it by paying nothing... of course, but as much for the green merits of recycling as anything else.

[CJBrew]

I would say the Burco boilers I have seen and tinkered with -- 4 or 5 different models -- of those which had simmerstats or thermostats on it was just a case of removing the connections from the power control block.

Basically on a Burco you unscrew the feet, the baseplate comes off and there you have all the element connections, in a compartment under the vessel. Even if you're not particularly good with electrics it should be pretty clear what's your mains in and element out, what's a thermostat (on the Burco it looks a bit like a metal pen, clipped to the base of the vessel).

I really can't say for the boiler you've got, it looks much more modern and therefore possibly less "user serviceable", but I don't know. Personally I'd get in there with a screwdriver, have a look around without changing anything, and if you still have questions post some photos of the internal gubbins and perhaps someone here can advise you better.

A 20l heater with some amount of temperature control could be very useful for all-grain brewing anyway, as a Hot Liquor Tank to provide you with mashing and sparging water. I have a 5g Burco that I am considering adapting for this purpose while I umm and ahh about upgrading to a big, insulated stainless jobby.

[farmershort]

Thanks CJ, I'll have a fiddle over the weekend... and the bishop said to... himself.

I like the idea of using it for sparging water in the final build... it does bring 20l of water up to the boil in a pretty decent time.

The tap deffo needs work though for use in heating up the mash water.

It would be brill if someone had some photo's or links to these copper cylinder boilers though - just to get back to the original question...

[msl]

Had a similar idea but changed the hot water cylinder into a hot liquor tank... don't forget that these are over 110 litres . Works really well, I'm doing 22L batches so start with about 32 in the tank.
So... just cut the top off and remove the heating coil, I had to cut this out. Spend then next few days cleaning it, salt and vinegar solution... you'll be suprised how dirty it is. Get a 'value' (tesco) kettle and use the element. Put it in the bottom hole where the coil was... The element is close to the bottom but you still need about 15L to cover it...
On the other side add a pipe and valve to the original hot water out... you'll need to extend the piping into the tank and to syphon out the 'dead volume'.
Need to be able to handle a blowtorch and know how to make the electrics safe.

[Kev888]

Re the small boiler, I'm in the process of converting a burco boiler to a HLT, the link doesn't seem to be working for me but I'm assuming my burco conversion may be similar and so could possibly be of interest. I don't need to bypass the stat as its a genuine boiler, but it would be easy to take the mains lead direct to the element if I did - although I'd probably use a connector of some kind rather than doing that so that i could use the original element connection wires which seem to be very heat resistant.

For the tap, I'll post some pics when done but am basicly ignoring the existing tap, and taking a drain out the bottom (via a tank connector) to a new tap and a sight tube. It has 22l between the 'max' marker and old tap, plus another 5l below the old tap which I should get most of by draining from the bottom (and as I'm not doing a rolling boil I think I can go a bit above the max marker too). I calculated the most I'd need for standard batches is about 25l (for the sparge water), so should be fine. The only concern is that I can now empty it below the element so I'll need to remember to switch off before draining - though you'd hope they considered it could boil dry in the design...

Also, a thought on the hot water cylinder in the OP; most have an immersion heater stuck in the top somewhere, but generally these are a sort of an extra to the main indirect heating coil from the boiler. However some cylinders are designed to be fully heated by an immersion heater, and so have the heater placed much lower down where it can heat more effectively. Probably better for the home-brew boiler approach (although the loss of coil is unfortunate - could make a nice chiller).. I've used an immerion heater in the past and I did need to bypass the thermostat to boil, but that just meant a brief bit of soldering. Copper cylinders should last a while given that the wort is there for just an hour or so every so often, though wort will attck them more than water in the same time; stainless should last longer but all the new ones I've seen are v expensive - perhaps because they are generally built to take mains water pressure; there must be cheaper stainless vats around that haven't been designed for pressure? Although, as a huge alternative to a pressurised cornie... oh my word

Cheers
Kev