Fix For Crown Urn Boiling Issues

[npage]

I use a crown electric urn and had issues with it maintaining a boil. I've come up with a simple zero cost fix so now the urn can maintain a continuous rolling boil for as long as required.
The urn features a protection against boiling dry, which is not required when boiling 30+ litres of wort.

This is what the underside of the urn looks like.


You just need to make is look like this.


No extra element, no insulation and not a cent spent. Tested boiling 35L for 90min with no trouble at all.

Good luck and happy brewing.

 

[Bribie G]

In other words just pull out the two brownies? Sounds like a great idea. Reminds me of an Arnie movie where the hero is agonising over whether to cut the red or the blue wire to disarm the nuclear warhead when the LED display is ticking down from 20 seconds, 19 seconds...

 

[captaincleanoff]

very interesting.. any chance you could give us a more detailed description on how to do it drunkskunk?

Not sure I can tell exactly what you have done in the photos

 

[davewaldo]

So are you saying its the Boil dry system which kicks in and stop a full and prolonged boil?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

looks like the little jigger in there is a temperature switch - things get to 100 + and it cuts out so the urn cant boil (well for long anyway) and therefore cant boil dry -- or maybe as soon as it gets over 100 it figures things have dried up and its time to cut the power. A wort boil is at a little over 100C so it cant tell the difference between that and boiling dry.

God help me but...... Lethal Corpse??? does it look like this fix is dangerous in any way other undoing the boil dry protection?

If not it looks like a "problem solved" scenario for Crown urn BIABers

(provisionally) Nice work drunkskunk.

TB

 

[Bribie G]

Seeing as the Crownies are a good fifty dollars cheaper than the Birkos, if this 'fix' does the trick it should chuck some extra business Ross's way as well.

 

[RobB]

It's odd that it needs that modification. The boil dry funtion shouldn't kick in unless it has boiled dry! Are you sure it's not the thermostat you are disabling?

I have a Birko and the thermostat goes up to 110 C, and since boiling water can't exceed 100 C it never switches off.

 

[npage]

It's odd that it needs that modification. The boil dry funtion shouldn't kick in unless it has boiled dry! Are you sure it's not the thermostat you are disabling?

I have a Birko and the thermostat goes up to 110 C, and since boiling water can't exceed 100 C it never switches off.

The crown thermostat also goes up to 110c but the thermostat is not the issue.

So are you saying its the Boil dry system which kicks in and stop a full and prolonged boil?

Yep. Well more like it 'kicks out', it's wired in series on the active wire between the thermostat and the element.

very interesting.. any chance you could give us a more detailed description on how to do it drunkskunk?

I simply disconnected the active wires from the element and the boil dry temperature switch, then reconnected the active wire (with the connection to the light) onto the element terminal.

 

[andrewsydes]

I've spoken to Crown but the engineer had already left for the day.
Hopefully I'll have an answer in the morning on whethr this is advised or not.

Cheers Ross

 

[LethalCorpse]

looks like the little jigger in there is a temperature switch - things get to 100 + and it cuts out so the urn cant boil (well for long anyway) and therefore cant boil dry -- or maybe as soon as it gets over 100 it figures things have dried up and its time to cut the power. A wort boil is at a little over 100C so it cant tell the difference between that and boiling dry.

God help me but...... Lethal Corpse??? does it look like this fix is dangerous in any way other undoing the boil dry protection?

If not it looks like a "problem solved" scenario for Crown urn BIABers

(provisionally) Nice work drunkskunk.

TB

Yeah, looks alright, assuming those two active ends left hanging are either end of the link between the cutout and the element, and are hence no longer live (best to remove them altogether). You now, of course, no longer have boil dry protection, which is a bit of a fire hazard, but mostly just a hazard to your element. With 30L of wort it's unlikely to ever boil dry, but you may accidentally turn it on when it's empty (my kind of move). You could replace the boil dry thermostat with a float switch inside the vessel, this is what I'm doing. You could probably also cut out the thermostat - it's not doing anything useful is it? It's not even remotely accurate on temperature for heating strike water, and when you boil you just want it to go hell for leather (you may want to be able to dial down the power output, but a thermostat doesn't do this). Replace it with a PID or even on-off temperature controller and it'll give you accurate strike temps without holding a glass thermometer in there

 

[Pollux]

This does sound interesting.......

And I was just about to go out next week and purchase a new immersion element.....

 

[npage]

I've spoken to Crown but the engineer had already left for the day.
Hopefully I'll have an answer in the morning on whethr this is advised or not.

Cheers Ross

There's no way crown will advise anybody to play around with the wiring on their product. Would void the warranty for sure.

 

[andrewsydes]

There's no way crown will advise anybody to play around with the wiring on their product. Would void the warranty for sure.

Agreed, but I'd like to hear their concerns, & hoping maybe they can set the cut out a little higher in temp, so we can boil wort & still have the boil dry protection. Will report back.

cheers Ross

 

[Ross]

Agreed, but I'd like to hear their concerns, & hoping maybe they can set the cut out a little higher in temp, so we can boil wort & still have the boil dry protection. Will report back.

cheers Ross

Wow!!! the site suddenly had me logged in as andymcg - Not sure how that happened :unsure: - had to log out & in again

Cheers Ross

 

[Wisey]

Seeing as the Crownies are a good fifty dollars cheaper than the Birkos, if this 'fix' does the trick it should chuck some extra business Ross's way as well.

Birko 40L $230 + GST

http://www.ljstuart.com.au/shop/shop393.html

Whats a crown worth?

 

[3GumsBrewing]

Sold on the idea of a Crown now.
Hurry up birthday money

DK

 

[Bribie G]

Just a point that Lethal made above, on brewday I have an electric kettle and an urn in the garage running off one power point but can't run the two together because they trip the ELCB so I usually start brewday by boiling a kettle, as it's always handy to have a kettle of boiling water handy for stuff. Then I attend to the urn. Two brews ago I accidentally put the wrong plug in, was faffing about with grain weighing etc and noticed an aroma of burnt toast, then realised it was the empty urn - switched it off immediately but it had built up enough heat to trip out the boil-dry reset button. No harm done but in the case of a Crownie you would want to get yourself into a good bulletproof 'check list' routine to avoid cooking $250 of equipment.

Wisey, great price on the Birko and I believe you can get them delivered anywhere for about 20 bucks so that beats most Crown prices hey.

 

[brando]

Wisey, great price on the Birko and I believe you can get them delivered anywhere for about 20 bucks so that beats most Crown prices hey.
[/quote]


Bribie, do you mean LJ Stuart will deliver for $20?

 

[growler]

BribieG,

O/T

Just found your next upgrade on that ljstuart site.......

Start saving your pennies for this..... http://www.ljstuart.com.au/shop/shop2232.html

and a tame sparky to install......

growler

 

[flattop]

I got my Crown for $220 delivered new from Evilbay....
The mod looks ok but you are effectively taking out a 240v safety mechanism. In the end it is a mechanism that the Birko probably doesn't have so by law it is "probably" not required.
I use my thermostat to get to strike temp, it's reasonably accurate, say within 5*c, so i set a timer for Sunday morning, an hour before i set my alarm my urn starts, and when i wake up my Crown is sitting at around 65*c waiting for me.

What is a float switch? Is it the same as a mercury switch?