BURCO BOILER HELP

[trucker5774]

I have just aquired a 3kw Burco boiler (tea urn) It has an exposed element in the bottom and the wiring is in a void below. There is a dial with a range from 1 to 6. I assume this is a thermostat of some sort. Having looked at the workings there appears to be no physical sensor wired to it. The mains lead is wired to some sort of control box which the dial forms part of. There are 2 wires from this control to the element but not to any other device which would sense the heat. Could the box just sense the air temperaturue in the void under the element (seemed unlikely to me)
It boils up fine but does not switch off once boiling. If I turn it off manually and then set the dial to a low number (2 for example) it will boil up again as the temperature drops, but again fails to switch off. The only time it seems to switch on AND off is with the dial set very low (below 1)
Does anyone have experience of theses boilers. Surely it should cycle on and off at whichever point the dial is set (keeping the water at the desired temperature)

[Graham]

I have just aquired a 3kw Burco boiler (tea urn) It has an exposed element in the bottom and the wiring is in a void below. There is a dial with a range from 1 to 6. I assume this is a thermostat of some sort. Having looked at the workings there appears to be no physical sensor wired to it. The mains lead is wired to some sort of control box which the dial forms part of. There are 2 wires from this control to the element but not to any other device which would sense the heat. Could the box just sense the air temperaturue in the void under the element (seemed unlikely to me)
It boils up fine but does not switch off once boiling. If I turn it off manually and then set the dial to a low number (2 for example) it will boil up again as the temperature drops, but again fails to switch off. The only time it seems to switch on AND off is with the dial set very low (below 1)
Does anyone have experience of theses boilers. Surely it should cycle on and off at whichever point the dial is set (keeping the water at the desired temperature)

It is not a thermostat, it is a simmerstat. It controls the energy into the element by pulsing the power on and off at about thirty-second intervals depending upon what it is set to. The lower the setting, the shorter the element 'on' time. A problem with them is that sometimes they keep cycling at maximum setting, preventing a continuous rolling boil from happening. I had to modify mine to stop that happening.

[trucker5774]

Thanks Graham, it makes sense now, it's obviously not working properly though. The boiler is a little small (27L)for my needs, so I will probably sell it on.
Cheers

[Graham]

Thanks Graham, it makes sense now, it's obviously not working properly though. The boiler is a little small (27L)for my needs, so I will probably sell it on.
Cheers

It is 27 litres to the embossed max-level line, it is a little under 34.5 litres to the brim. Unless you go in for the "start off with too much wort and then boil down to final volume stuff" it is adequate for 23 or 25 litre batches. A bit more headroom would be nice as a safety-measure against a boil-over, which only happens when your back is turned anyway. But once the foaming has settled down it can be left to its own devices. There is a fair amount of work to be done to fit a hop filter and the like. In my case I fitted a bottom take-off using a tank connector, which the plinth makes fairly straightforward. I made a drilled false bottom from thick copper sheet to act as my hop filter. The wash-boiler version has a removable, perforated, stainless element guard which, if a bottom take-off is fitted close to the element and under the element guard, should serve well as a hop filter. The element guard will fit into the catering version, but it is not supplied with one. The catering version has a nice black leaver tap; the wash-boiler version has 'n' horrible 'turnable' tap that relies on soap suds in the wash water to lubricated it and keep it free. Apart from that the two versions are more-or-less the same.

For a boiler, the simmerstat does not need to work, as long as it does not cycle when set to full thrutch, which will keep bringing it off the boil. For a hot liquor tank, then some sort of control is desirable.

Even proper thermostats, which are fitted to the later versions of the Burco, cannot work at boiling point and cannot control the vigour of a boil. The boiling point of water is the boiling point of water and that is that - there is nothing for it to measure, and if it could it would end up cycling the boil on and off which is undesirable.

[trucker5774]

Thanks again for taking the time to post the info Graham. I may turn it into a boiler and keep it as a spare. There is also the chance of another one of these if the plan comes together. I believe it is new and in the box! It's turning into boiler central here!

[Evoflash]

Just ordered one of these myself.

Looks like a very promising piece of equipment - better than my big saucepan.

Interested in the modifications you've made Graham, can you elaborate?

Thanks,

[Earth Titan]

Well here goes for a technical (ish) description of how to fix it.

Underneath the boiler are a number of thermostats. The live and neutral wires run through these and the element in series and you need to override them by just taking them out of the circuit, except for the manual override one. Therefore you need to either connect the wires together or put a new wire in. The manual override one, allegedly, is the one with the red sticky out bit for resetting. You need this as it is a proper safety feature.

I understand this leaves you with a digital boiler (on or off) with no control but it does boil. Oh yes does it boil..!!!!

[grmills]

More wiring info on this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27664&p=303040&hili ... ls#p303040