Things aren't going so well with our Brewtus II - Katherine was making our morning shots, and as she turned towards the sink with its drip tray: "There was this 'Swizz. Pop., BANG!' and all the kitchen lights went out."
No, it wasn't our neighbors playing with an RPG - it was the blessed brew boiler heating element going South and taking out a GFCI socket in a fairly spectacular fashion: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C0w2AIcqeqiuG6vqQHi5FW9MmCvCIcL7/view?usp=sharing It looks like there was water intrusion near the element's base, and when it flashed to steam it ripped the element apart. The loud bang was a very marginal GFCI socket failing to deal with a dead short on a twenty amp circuit. The circuit is now on a 15 amp breaker, there's a medical-grade dual socket rated for 15 amp continuous service, and a new boiler element is due this week from WLL. No one appears to have stock on the Expobar-specific thread sealant - Stefano recommends an italian sealant which looks very good - which I'd buy, but USPS from Oregon to North Carolina is pretty glacial at the best of times, and we're getting impatient. The local HVAC folks who keep our 75 year old steam heat system working swear by Permatex 56521: "It applies easily, sets up quickly, remains flexible, and in a clean joint - never, ever leaks." 56521 has no NSF rating, and its MDS lists ethanol as a primary carrier, with 1% Methanol as an additional carrier. While folks have maintained that K's coffee: "Could stun a horse & blind a donkey..." I've no desire to actualize their experience, and will use the sealant only on the the upper threads with 4-5 wraps of teflon tape on the lower threads to isolate it from the brew water. There appears to be good water flow through the E61, with no portafilter the Elka pump will fill an 8 oz glass in less than 15 seconds - I'll pull the water level probe, clean and inspect it for continuity and scale, to eliminate it causing an underfill condition. Much past this point, my troubleshooting gets fairly mystical, since the volume of water flow through the grouphead belies issues with the parker valve or Elka pump, my most popular theories tend to include demons, Maxwell Houses, and extremely bad JuJu. Cheers & Thanks Jim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/brewtus/2e070887-e040-46a8-a389-a475b2f26cedn%40googlegroups.com.
