Therein lies a story....
Our HLT (hot liquor tank, which supplies hot liquor (water) to the brewing process) has 3 x 9kw 3-phase heaters installed. During spring - so long ago now I can't remember when exactly - one of these elements began to trip the electrics, then when we ignored it and reset the trips it began to noisily blow the main fuse on the control panel... so we isolated it, because in summer we don't need 3 elements to raise the temperature, 2 will do fine.
Wind time on to September and we are beginning to wish we'd had the work done earlier as mains water, and the ambient temperature, are dropping meaning the HLT has to be put on earlier to reach 82c in time for the brew, costing us more money outside the economy7 tariff!
So, Gazza ordered a brand new element which duly arrived... and then sat in it's box for a month as we tried to arrange for it to be fitted. The problem was our original electrician who set up the brewery had retired and next door (an electrical training place) was too busy to do the swap at the times we needed it done! This may seem strange, but remember that to empty the tank of hot water costs money and is wasteful, so it's best to do the job on a Monday or Tuesday when the water has cooled down... which was the problem, as Iain couldn't do those days and at other times the tank was either heating up, being used in a brew, or full of hot water we didn't want to throw down the drain...
We considered doing the job ourselves, but one look at the 3-phase wiring put us off; mains is OK, but make a mistake with 3-phase and it's potentially fatal! Luckily for us Dai, the retired electrician, happened to pop in one day this week and, in ten minutes, the project moved on further than it has during the last 3 months! The new element is in, it now simply needs wiring up when Dai comes back... watch this space for more exciting element news!
Here are some photos of the broken element, which is clearly very poorly....
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