Did I Frack My Element?

[bluenose]

I did my first batch in a while on Sunday, and I was all excited to use my CFC in the field for the first time. So excited that I forgot to kill the power to the element before I started draining the keggle. I'd say the element was exposed for a couple of minutes only, less than 5 mins for sure.

It looks pretty black at one end, but normalish at the other end.

I googled how to test a water heater element and one video I saw said if the multimeter reads between 10 and 16 ohms then it's good. My reader showed 13.2 ohms, so am I good to go with this element?

[HPhunter]

Looks like its not "open" doesn't mean you didn't frack it. Is it a ripple element or a standard hotwater tank one? Odds are you are going to have to fill her up with water and try it out. They usually burn through the sheathing when they go. Black doesn't mean much. Bubbles, chunks, and rough areas are more of what you should look for.

[GAM]

Ya water and some PBW. Clean the shit out of it.

S

[Swine]

I had a element go on my camper hot water heater.
First time measuring, measured good, but tank was drained.
Filled with water, before applying power, measured again, short. It was because it was turned on with no water and it must have burned a hole or something.
So I suggest filling with water and measuring again.
If still measures good, I would say it is fine, you may just have taken some of the life span from it.

[bluenose]

Here's what the bad boy looks like:

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I'll clean it up and put it back in the keggle, filler up, measure the ohms, and try to boil some water

Thanks gents

[HPhunter]

Nothing wrong with that from what I can see. Lucky it's a ulwd normal ones would have burned up instantly.

[bluenose]

Ok, I may as well add onto this thread... same element, different issue, kind of

This time the element was dry fired for a little longer as the kettle was left unattended and forgotten...

The element itself actually doesn't look too bad, so I opened up the element housing to test it out. The meter reads 13.6 ohms, so theoretically ok, but the plastic insulator is melted.

20160609_223949.jpg

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Is this element safe to use?

[CorneliusAlphonse]

Jesus mark you're gonna burn your house down

[Keith]

I think you best install a timer on brew day lok

[jtmwhyte]

Here's a thought you might want to call me for your next brew day so I can be your attention span, lol

[mcgster]

I have done that before and soaked the element in concentrated PBW for a week then gave it a good scrub. I thought it was fine then my next batch had a subtle scorch flavour to it. I had to toss the batch so if you can get a replacement element fairly cheap you may be better off swapping it.


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[MitchK]

a lot of commercial electric rigs (including my grainfather) have protections against this sort of thing that will flip a thermal breaker if the bottom of the pot gets much above boiling temperature... Is this not something you could DIY?