Who's built a homemade electric scalder?

[UrbanBirds]

Yes it does. Thank you.

What about the element. How do you wire the element to the etc?

 

[MontanaMeatBird]

The element is connected as follows:

One wire connects from one element terminal to the NO connection. The other element terminal connects to the COM (white wire) terminal.

 

[UrbanBirds]

So it sounds like either terminal can be used for either, i.e.-it doesn't matter which terminal you select to connect to the NO or the COM. Is this right?

 

[MontanaMeatBird]

Yes. From the perspective of the heating element, that is correct. Technically, the neutral wire (white) attaches to the COM and the power (black?) attaches to the NO. However, for a resistive load (such as a heating element) it does not matter which is which.

Mark

 

[UrbanBirds]

Thank you so much for all of this. It has been a huge help to me.

 

[UrbanBirds]

One final question: I am using an extension chord to do this. I have three wires, black, white and green. The green is for ground, but I don't think there's anywhere to put a ground on the heating element. Is that correct?

 

[UrbanBirds]

So do I just leave the ground off when wiring the element? Is that safe?

 

[UrbanBirds]

So here are some pics of my new scalder. Today was the first day I fired it up. I've decided to ground it the dolly it's mounted to, but I haven't actually screwed it on.

I wrapped it in the duct insulation, like yours. Instead of just one layer, I decided to wrap it in about four layers, to make it as thick as a hwh, and also because I really don't need extra duct insulation lying around here.

I wanted to seal the top to keep stinky chicken water from running down between the layers, so I used a ton of duct tape, which didn't really stick very well.

I probably didn't need to, but I sealed everything with silicone: screws and the hole for the element.

The etc is a really slick piece of instrumentation. I'm very happy with that.

The barrel I bought had been used as a rain catcher for someone's gutter, so it was already fitted with a side spigot. It's not central like yours, but it seems to work ok.

The first element I bought fried up in a second because I turned it on with no water in the barrel. For anyone thinking of making this, Please do not do this. It could have been a bigger disaster than just a $10 element.

It took about five hours to get it to 155. I think, when I'm ready to use it, I'll turn it on the night before I'm processing chickens. I'll post the pics in a second.

 

[UrbanBirds]

Ok this sorta stinks. Can't seem to upload the image from my phone. Stay tuned.

 

[UrbanBirds]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0wjUB6tgcwUYzVFUFl2LXo3ZWM

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0wjUB6tgcwURnhDclMtR2Y4RG8

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0wjUB6tgcwUbDZLTG5naUktR0U

Hope that worked. Thanks for all the help!