Food safe sealant for leaky boiler

[delzep]

Installed two kettle elements in a bucket last week....only had a chance to test them today and theres a tiny leak in one of them. Any suggestions as to how I can sort this out? No harm in a permenent solution for this so long as I can clean the elements while in place I suppose

[Ciderhead]

did you use the rubber grommit from the kettle? what size and how did you cut the hole?

[delzep]

I used the rubber seal yeah. I used a stanley knife to cut the hole. Me other element was grand though 

[Ciderhead]

nnooooooooooh
was there alcohol involved when these were being cut?
consider cutting out a washer using baking tray silicone or if Dempsey is not looking tec 7, but you didn't hear it from me

[DEMPSEY]

or if Dempsey is not looking tec 7, but you didn't hear it from me

where's me glasses

[delzep]

nnooooooooooh
was there alcohol involved when these were being cut?
consider cutting out a washer using baking tray silicone or if Dempsey is not looking tec 7, but you didn't hear it from me

so would it be boiler wall/silicone washer/original washer, boiler wall/original washer/silicone washer, or would the silicone washer simply replace the original washer?

[Ciderhead]

from inside to out , kettle element, silicone washer, original o ring from kettle wall in bucket wall, back of kettle element.

[delzep]

Nice one, I'll give that a go tomorrow

[Ciderhead]

or thermowells

[HomeBrewWest]

As a general comment on the subject "food safe sealant", use silicon rubber for aquariums. All good pet shops carry tubes of the stuff. Little fishies are very prone to toxins / fungicides etc in the normal hardware store sealants so the aquarium ones in pet shops are food safe. They are used commercially to seal stills in NZ.

[delzep]

actually, would PTFE tape not do the job?

[johnrm]

My guess is ptfe is going to be too thin and fiddly.
examine the hole, why is it leaking?

[delzep]

My guess is ptfe is going to be too thin and fiddly.
examine the hole, why is it leaking?

cos its not exactly circular  :

[johnrm]

If it's only a bit off you might be able to get the original seal to fit.
Have you made a complete balls of it?

[delzep]

Well I tested it with about 7 or 8 litres of water and it was grand. Tried it again today with 25 litres and there was a slight leak, so I'm assuming the leak was due to the weight of water causing a slight bulge and therefore a leak. The water was cold, so I dunno if hot water involved would make much of a difference (dunno the coefficent of expansion for bucket material and seal material)