Old galvanised burco's

[lord groan]

This may well be the homebrewing equivalent of teaching grandma to suck eggs, so if you already know this then I apologise but....
I was perusing the wares at the bottom of the 'steel' recycling skip at my local tip yesterday when my eye chanced upon one of these

I've been looking for a stainless boiler of about 45-50litres for a while now and being the cheapest of cheapskates I've been waiting for ebay to list one that none of my fellow homebrewers spot, so I can get it cheap. I have seen quite a few of these galvanised steel jobbies on ebay over the last 18 months or so and always dismissed them because they are galvanised steel. However the one I found turned out to be double skinned and the inner skin is stainless. Mine (I bought it obviously) has a capacity of 46.5 litres to the very top and it uses a standard burco butterfly element. Result!

I'm only mentioning it because if you are looking for a decent stainless tub to use as a boiler for 20-30l brews these look just the job, definitely worth checking out!
hth

[seymour]

That's cool, good find. I wouldn't have thought the inside was stainless either...good to know. Happy brewing on your new kit!

[chivelegs]

That's exactly the same as mine. It's been great, although I'd change out the plug and check the wiring carefully before each use, they weren't really designed for using for 90 minute stints, and the shielding melted on mine once. Easy fix though.

[chivelegs]

I'd change the tap too.

[lord groan]

Cheers Seymour and Chivelegs,
you're right about the wiring Chivelegs - scary, looking in the base the L and N wires to the element were nicely charred and the simmerstat is happy to switch on but even in the off postion it still powers up every 5 minutes or so.
Seized tap cut off and hole filled with 1/2" bsp flanged plug and backnut, spot the dodgy knob on temp control too

Very temporary wiring fix just to test the element and simmerstat.

Short test boil, a fair bit of limescale remains but otherwise worked fine

All thats left is to fit a bottom drain and hop filter, replace/repair the simmerstat, rewire properly and start using it!
I'm thinking about giving one of these a go as a power controller.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4000W-High-Po ... 417c75c338
officially 220v but if they're 220v +-10% then they should be fine here, has anyone tried one of these in the UK?