Bucket brew kettle leak

[dannythemanny]

Evening all,

I'm returning to homebrewing after a 5 year hiatus. I brewed in the US for several years, and have never tried brewing in the UK before. Things are a bit different over here. Namely prefeeence of electric over gas.

In any case... I followed the instructions for making a cheap kettle from a polypropylene bucket with a few holes drilled in to insert tea kettle elements and a valve for draining. My dear old dad was helping me, and instead of drilling a 38mm hole for element, he drilled a 40mm hole. The fit doesn't seem too bad, but it is leaking, so evidently it's not great. We've tried a neoprene type washer on the inside and outside, which helped, but once it got hot in a dry run, it started trickling again.

Any advice on plugging such a leak? Is there any suitable sealant, or should I just abandon this and start afresh with a new bucket and drilling the correct sized hole? Will the 2mm be making the difference?

All help much appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[simon12]

There is some standard bathroom silicone sealant around the tap in my mash tun which has never caused a problem but I would be worried if the element could potentially fall out.

 

[dannythemanny]

Well, I don't reckon the element could fall out. A bit of sealant on the outside seems like a good idea, but I have a couple of concerns.

The first is, it's a kettle, so the sealant will need to be able to withstand boiling temperature for 90 minutes.

The second is, I've noticed a preference for making sure everything is sealed on the inside to avoid getting mould/fungus/nasty stuff growing in the tiny leaky space between inside of the kettle and the sealant on the outside.

Hmm...

 

[Brewberoza]

Ditch the pp and go hdpe. Much more suitable for higher temperatures.