Birko Urn Boil Dry Switch Problem

[big78sam]

Hi all,

Part of my 40L birko urn cleaning regime is boiling some water in it. However, I accidentally left the urn on and forgot about it for 10 hours and it had boiled dry and tripped the boil dry switch. So I pushed the button under the urn to reset and proceeded to do another brew a week later. However, during the next brew I did, the boil dry switch kept tripping during the boil. I have never had this problem before. Has this happened to anyone? Does anyone know how the boil dry switch works? I was doing an IPA and had lots of hops in the boil so possibly there were hops sitting on the sensor or whatever is used to trigger the switch. Possibly I didn't clean the elements well enough following the boil dry.

My next plan is to give everything a thorough clean and do a test run of 30L of water to see if it's triggered again but thought I'd ask here first in case someone could point me in the right direction.

Has anyone had experience with going back to Birko with issues within warranty?

Cheers, Sam.

 

[Phoney]

Probably best to email Birko. Ive found their customer service to be extremely helpful.

 

[Bribie G]

They have agents all over the place. If you ring them the lass will tell you your nearest one, who may be able to look at the urn for you. I once accidentally switched mine on empty and it popped the safety pin but it worked ok afterwards in my case.

 

[chappo1970]

Drove into Bribie Island today. Couldnt find you mate! (typed by raven)

could not find the G spot... :lol:

 

[Bribie G]

I've moved - bigger brewery. Mate you should have pmd me first and we could have had several Yorkshire reds, and even some mofo malt liquor yo. And had a ride on Bertie my new electric bike. B)
Anyone up this way tomorrow I'm doing a Speckled Hen clone, some kegging and general crappin around in the brewhouse all day. I'm home under doc's orders as I had a head injury a couple of weeks ago and waiting for results of my brain scan if they managed to find what's left off ittt.

 

[chappo1970]

Can you crush our grain bill for tomorrow on that pilllow case rig?

 

[Silo Ted]

Now that the subject has come up, I might be having some similar issues to the OP.

I have also had to use the reset switch from time to time.

But on my last brewday, doing two back-to back, I found that with the second batch I couldn't get a constant (wort) boil, and the element kept switching on and off. Was a bit slack on checking my evaporation rates but I reckon the boil off was out. My uneducated theories include the fat that it was a higher gravity due to a lot of adjuncts that may have coated the element or thermostat probe and created an artificial insulator, skewing the actual wort temp reading. Or it could have just been too much gunk debris from the earlier batch because I didnt clean the element between batches.

I would like to disable the thermostat completely so the element runs constantly, because its of no concern with dry boils, it will never be on when empty. Interested to hear some feedback to this thread, and a possible fix.

 

[big78sam]

My uneducated theories include the fat that it was a higher gravity due to a lot of adjuncts that may have coated the element or thermostat probe and created an artificial insulator, skewing the actual wort temp reading. Or it could have just been too much gunk debris from the earlier batch because I didnt clean the element between batches.

That was what I was hoping my problem was, high gravity, high hop boil. I'll ring Birko next week and see what they say and report back.

 

[Silo Ted]

That was what I was hoping my problem was, high gravity, high hop boil. I'll ring Birko next week and see what they say and report back.

Don't know if they are really able to speak about the specs when it comes to how we use the thing for.

Hey can you let me know via PM if you sort out your issue, and how you sorted it ? I ran mine today on a standard brew of 1.048 (a 71% efficiency on my recipe) with no problems. But the 'black out' period on the element is something I wish to bypass if I do two mashes in one day.

I would lean towards disabling the thermo sensor.

 

[big78sam]

OK so I rang Birko and they said this wasn't something they usually see with their urns. They said it could be something on the thermometer that was giving readings that were too high. They suggested boiling a few liters of water with crystallised citric acid added. I think they said 1 tablespoon per litre or water.

They said I should be able to buy the citric acid in supermarkets but my local Woolies didn't have any. I did find sachets of a cleaner designed for urns and kettles so used this instead. It didn't say what the active ingredients are. It was just a case or dissolving in warm water then boiling. This cleaned up a lot of crud that had deposited itself on the urn. I did a brew on Saturday and had no problems. So for anyone who has similar issues give this a go and it might fix it up for you.