Another Use for the Heatermeter


 
In actuality, I'm just distilling water in that pic. I home anodize aluminum, and it requires a lot of clean distilled water, and got tired of having to buy it.
 
That's cool! Does the HeaterMeter control the heater element as well or is it just for monitoring? Did you build that distiller yourself?
 
Just using it here to tell when I need to turn my chiller on. Boiling water is boiling water so not using the HM to control it. If I make my own "Fuel", I'll use it to control temp with a SS Relay. I bought the Still from Mile High Distilling. It's actually already paid for itself on money I've saved not having to buy distilled water.
 
That..... is a LOT of distilled water. How much of a PITA is it to remove mineral deposits in it?
 
Well, depending on what's in the water, it could be awfully good water. I grew up with 200-300' deep wells through a lot of sand, mildly hard, but tastes pretty good, I just about drown when I make a trip back to the farm. Brewing beer just doesn't work with completely pure water, the chemistries just fall flat (look up Burton salts.)

Keeping it out of your equipment, I can see being an issue.

I'm looking at an electric all-grain brewing system. One of it's add-ons is a distillation tower.
 
JKalchik said:
Well, depending on what's in the water, it could be awfully good water. I grew up with 200-300' deep wells through a lot of sand, mildly hard, but tastes pretty good, I just about drown when I make a trip back to the farm. Brewing beer just doesn't work with completely pure water, the chemistries just fall flat (look up Burton salts.)

Keeping it out of your equipment, I can see being an issue.

I'm looking at an electric all-grain brewing system. One of it's add-ons is a distillation tower.
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Water tastes OK, but quite horrible for scale build-up on faucets, sinks, toilets, and such. I had to replace 2 faucets this year they got so bad. If I were to distill for drinking water or brewing, I would definitely re-introduce some minerals.
 
If it is scaling that bad, you need a water softener, or a new one. You woudl still have to distill the water for other uses, but everything connected to the water would be happier with it softened.
 
Andrew F said:
If it is scaling that bad, you need a water softener, or a new one. You woudl still have to distill the water for other uses, but everything connected to the water would be happier with it softened.
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Yep. My next spend. Already been sourcing for a whole house softening system.
 
WBegg said:
Yep. My next spend. Already been sourcing for a whole house softening system.
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When we bought this house 10 years ago, the clockworks on top of the softener were frozen and locked up solid. It being an old style timer based softener, I started looking around, and as much as I wanted a Kinetico..... I ended up buying one (demand recycling) from a big box store, as I could replace it 5x before coming up to the price of a USED Kinetico. No doubt those are nice, but they think they're not just gold plated.

17 grains of softness, and I still descale faucet aerators and hot water kettles on an infrequent basis, no faucet replacement. When boiling wort, I do get a faint deposit around the waterline, if I clean the kettle immediately, it just about wipes right out.
 
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