Hot water tank

[Randygh]

My autoclave (steam sterilizer) at work died last week. It's 25 yrs old and has served us well, but time to replace it. The tank is heavy stainless steel with ~5 gallon volume. The Admiral has remarked it would be nice to have pressurized hot water on the boat. (It's alot of work to heat a pan of water on the stove. :lol: ) So, I'm thinking of using the autoclave chamber to make a hot water tank. I know I can purchase a tank that is heated by electricity and engine coolant, but I'm cheap and if I can make a tank for less, I might just do it. I don't think it would be hard to put in some copper tubing to act as an exchanger of heat from the engine coolant, but I'm not sure how to install a small 110v electric coil and thermostat. I hook up to 30 amp shore power and I've got a new extra 15 amp breaker in my breaker panel so I could dedicate a breaker to the heat coil. One of the problems I can foresee is that if I install a heat element of 15 amps, I won't be able to turn on my 15 amp battery charger. I'd be tripping breakers.

Has anyone made a hot water tank? Any suggestions.

[SomeSailor]

You'll be OK. The heating element draws 15A max and the if the charger outputs 15A it's probably only drawing 2 or 3 at best.

Most elements are 1" or 1-1/4” NPT and building one up wouldn't be that hard. Probably a good use for a stainless tank. I might have problem drinking water from what I knew had been in that tank over all the years (even though its cleaner than anything else you'd ever find) :shock:

[heymagic]

So...if you spent the extra time working instead of messing around building a heater...you could buy 2 new real heaters.. ;) . You would need to install coils, a 110 element, a temp overide, a pop off valve, insulation, an outer skin, wiring cover , and , and , and.... I'm thinkin you need to go outside and wax off a bit . :argh :argh

[SomeSailor]

Not to mention I don't think I could get the visual of cat-blood-covered-forceps resting the old autoclave off my mind. :)

[Randygh]

Several years ago, I decided to can some salmon and cook the jars in the autoclave. What a disaster. I packed the salmon into pint jars, filled the jars half full of water around the meat and sealed with new lids. I set the autoclave for 45 minutes. After about 20 minutes the autoclave started emitting a very fishy odor, boarding on really ****ty. I cooked the jars for a full 45 minutes and after the chamber depressurized, I opened the door and discovered the most God-awful mess I'd every seen. The water and salmon juice boiled out through the jar seals and burned on the inside of the chamber. It took all afternoon to clean the chamber. The cooked meat was only fit for crab bait.

[heymagic]

Somehow I can see Dan Akroyd selling used autoclaves next to the Bass-O-Matic....boil, broil and stew in one fell swoop. :lol:

[Go Aweigh2452]

and you want to make a hot water tank?????

[SomeSailor]

Several years ago, I decided to can some salmon and cook the jars in the autoclave. What a disaster. I packed the salmon into pint jars, filled the jars half full of water around the meat and sealed with new lids. I set the autoclave for 45 minutes. After about 20 minutes the autoclave started emitting a very fishy odor, boarding on really ****ty. I cooked the jars for a full 45 minutes and after the chamber depressurized, I opened the door and discovered the most God-awful mess I'd every seen. The water and salmon juice boiled out through the jar seals and burned on the inside of the chamber. It took all afternoon to clean the chamber. The cooked meat was only fit for crab bait.

I canned a bunch a few years back (110 minutes at 10psi). All went well until I broke a jar on the last batch. :)

If you like canned salmon it's a pretty easy way to put fish up for winter :)