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I just had a fairly shitty brew night last night and thought I should post up a warning to anyone who owns or is considering purchasing a CROWN 40lt urn.


I have only done about 5 brews in the urn and the first 3 were done with the "Boil dry thermostat" connected "factory condition". The trouble with this is that the wort will come up to 100 deg and then the thermostat will shut off the element and you cannot get a decent continuous boil going.

Good news though,

there is a bypass, where you simply unscrew the bottom and re-connect the wiring to avoid this "Boil dry thermostat".


BAD NEWS.......

GOOD BYE WARRANTY (I knew this when I did it)

the Crown urn element is not rated to sustain a boil over a decent period of time.(did not know this)

So...... what happened to Captain re-wire you might ask....

the element heated up so much that it melted the 240V active and neutral wires under the urn to the point where they fused together and

BOOM!!!! out goes the fuse and into darkness the house plunged.

Good news, it was just a fuse and it was with 2 minutes before flame out. (close enough)

BAD NEWS.

the wort had caught on the overheated element and burnt a 1mm thick layer of caramalised(burnt to shit) wort, the flavour of which spread through the entire brew to the point of no return.

the element on my lovely $250ish urn is cooked, never to brew again.

Good news.

I spoke to a lady by the name of Jen from Crown today and they sell replacement elements for the urn for around $50 plus postage.
http://www.crownindustries.com.au/content_urns.php

EVEN BETTER news.
They sell an upgrade "boil dry thermostat", the original is rated to 130 degrees and cuts out before a rolling boil is achieved, the upgrade is rated to 150 degrees and allows a rolling boil.

Keep in mind that this rating is for element temperature, not wort temp, so should avoid heating the under mechanics of the urn to the point of melting wiring.

AWESOME news, the upgraded "boil dry thermostat" is at a bargain price of $7.50 +gst and shipping.


SO.......

My suggestion to anyone who has or is considering is this...... make a phone call and buy the upgraded "boil dry thermostat" before you lose a batch of beer and cook your urn..


Happy brewing from Captain re-wire himself.

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the warning and sorry to hear about the disaster.

Was this a particularly high-gravity wort or just something regular? I have heard that high gravity can cause problems for urns because it raises the boiling temperature of the wort.

Hope the replacement bits work out OK.

Cheers,

Oliver

It was another rye golden ale, it was simply the element too high for too long.

Should be ok, everything can be fixed with time and money...

I also had the problem of the boil dry protection kicking in during the boil, so I am now scraping the crud from the element cover after mash out and then once or twice during the boil. This seems to have fixed the problem without needing to go to the extreme of re-wiring.

Wifey is killing me!!! She organised the replacement parts for me, but has wrapped it up for Father's Day. Aaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!'

That's days away.

Brewed last night with my fixed urn and gotta say I'm happy, I hit all targets on the brew, and maintained I nice boil the whole time with only a small amount of caramelization on the bottom( same as previous brews).
Happy days...,