Bucket heater

[bombus]

I've been waiting to buy one of these things, thinking that I would make 5 gallon master batches for my favorite recipes, melt the oils overnight, and soap the following morning- just scoop out what I needed for one batch.

I received my bucket heater from soapequipment.com a couple of days ago. I added all of my oils and turned the heater on. I'm still waiting for it to melt. I only turned it on during the day, and probably had it too low
to begin with, but this morning I woke up at 6:30 and turned it on high. Now 5 hours later I'm still waiting. What a pain. Don't know what it will do to my electric bill.

I pulled the belt higher on the bucket- even with the floating unmelted portion (instead of two inches from the bottom like they suggested), hoping it will help. Does anyone have experience with these?

 

[carebear]

no, but I"m interested in hearing how this goes.

maybe try setting the whole thing on a heating pad to boot?

 

[Mellifera]

I have a lot of experience with them--melting honey! Honey is often stored, crystalized, in those 5 gallon buckets. Beekeeping supply stores sell what I assume is the same belt. I put mine on a rheostat, because I've found that mine gets TOO hot (and even melted the plastic a bit on one bucket). One doesn't want to burn honey.

In any case, running it at 70% or so heat, it still takes me a couple-three days to melt palm oil. My husband thinks I should get two belts, one for the top and one for the bottom, to speed things up. Maybe he's right. I was considering just turning on a space heater next to the bucket, since I soap in my (very cool, like 55F) basement.

Here's a link to mine: https://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_ ... cts_id=380

 

[bombus]

Hi Mellifera-
I can see that your metal belt might melt a plastic bucket. The one I bought is made for plastic or metal buckets- it looks like rubber-coated nylon mesh.

Yours was cheaper- $107. I paid $139.

I have put it on a heating pad as Carebear suggested. Now that the belt has
been near the top of the oil level, the floating (mostly CO at this point) is melting, but when I stir it, it is not clear like when I melt it on the stove.

I was hoping that this method would make my life easier, not more complicated. It might do better with 76 degree CO. I used 92.

Now I'm thinking that when the whole thing is melted & I can stir it up well, I'll have to transfer it to smaller containers- one for each batch, and
then when I'm ready to soap, I can melt it in the microwave. But then instead of one, 5-gal bucket of masterbatch, I have to store 7-10 smaller containers. Ugh!

 

[judymoody]

This looks like more trouble than it's worth, unfortunately.

I saw on another site that somebody bought soup warmer pots from a restaurant supplier for heating oils. Maybe that might work better? Don't know about price or capacity though.

 

[xyxoxy]

I don't soap in that sort of quantity but I can't imagine waiting 3 days for my oils to melt. I use a stainless steel pot with my electric burner on the lowest setting and everything is nice and clear in just a few minutes. Larger batch... larger pot. Of course in the summer some of my hard oils are already somewhat melted to begin with.

 

[Tegan]

My master-batch mix stays semi liquid, so what I do is wrap the bucket with a regular old heating pad from wally-world then wrap the whole thing with a wool army blanket, and drape another over the top. 12 hours later everything is melted and clear.

I'm confident that CO would melt fine with this method....palm might take a little longer, and I'm not sure it would work for some of the hard butters.

It doesn't get hot enough for me to be afraid it will start fires or melt the bucket.

ETA, when I make my master batch I melt everything separate in a pot on the stove, then pour it into the bucket....I HAVE melted everything in the bucket with this method, but it took a long time. Now I just switch it on the night before I'm going to soap and no worries.

 

[bombus]

ooh Tegan-
I like the idea of melting the oils as you combine them in the bucket. Never thought of that. Last night I ended up pouring the slurry from the bucket into my large soaping pot
and melting a portion at a time, returning it to the bucket and repeating until all of the oils were melted and the whole thing was clear. Then I weighed out individual batches
and put it in large containers.

I think that you have hit on the answer, though. Just use the bucket to bring the thick slurry to melting point. It is nice to have a large container to mix the oils in, but a pain
to divide it up and then store the smaller containers. I will never attempt to melt them in the bucket, though.

Thanks for your input!

 

[Tegan]

Just wanted to add that my large bucket is a beer bottling bucket, so it has a twist spigot at the bottom. I get everything melted in there, stir it really well, then just set a pot under the spigot and pour off what I need. I've gotten pretty good at eyeballing it and can generally get within 30 grams the first time, so minor adjustments are all that's needed when I'm measuring.

 

[charlotteda]

melting belt

This is a very interesting idea. I too am a beekeeper and I have one of the little cheap ($25) plastic warming belts from Brushy Mt Bee Farm. It will "somewhat" melt my CO . My problem is that my recipes vary a bit. I do need to find a way to more efficiently make soap. hmmmm So, if you might have a bucket (mixed) with the right porportion of PO and CO having already been melted and mixed, and you could then warm it and stir and pour ?

 

[BakingNana]

Tegan, I've been eyeing those beer buckets. Do you have any problem with leakage around the spigot? The price on those buckets is so reasonable, I wouldn't mind using more than 1 for different recipes as long as you haven't experienced any leakage. What a great idea!

 

[bombus]

Re: melting belt

This is a very interesting idea. I too am a beekeeper and I have one of the little cheap ($25) plastic warming belts from Brushy Mt Bee Farm. It will "somewhat" melt my CO . My problem is that my recipes vary a bit. I do need to find a way to more efficiently make soap. hmmmm So, if you might have a bucket (mixed) with the right porportion of PO and CO having already been melted and mixed, and you could then warm it and stir and pour ?

Yes. I have used 1-gallon buckets that will hold several batches of, say 32oz oil recipes. If you remove the wire bale, it will fit in most microwaves to melt. Saves lots of time. You could have several small buckets with several recipes ready to go.

 

[LauraHoosier]

Not sure yet how well this is going to work but I'm trying it. I have 3 radiant heat space heaters that have the look of the old radiators you'd see in homes. These are oil filled and can get up to about 85 degrees on high but make no mistake if you touch the fins it will burn you.

I decided first to put the bucket of palm oil I got next to one of them, about 1" away. So far in the hour it's been there I've turned it once and it's already getting liquid. Since I can't carry anything over about 15lbs right now I'm going to have hubby grab another one and set it up on the other side of the bucket.

I really think this is going to work great based on what I'm seeing so far! It would suck in the Summer when it hits 110*F with the heat index but by then I think the bucket will find its contents already separated into 2 gallon buckets

Oh and as for the cost on my electric bill? It's a very minor hit on it right now because our house is poorly insulated and very drafty so we'd be cold without them on. If we used the house's heater our electric bill would hit $300+/month without these little space heaters. With the 3 of them (one in the master suite in the basement set at 60F so the goldfish doesn't freeze, one in the livingroom on the main floor set at 68F and one in the computer room set at 64F) we're comfortable and our bill is around $160/month. This is an old house with all the problems that come with them

 

[Tegan]

Tegan, I've been eyeing those beer buckets. Do you have any problem with leakage around the spigot? The price on those buckets is so reasonable, I wouldn't mind using more than 1 for different recipes as long as you haven't experienced any leakage. What a great idea!

Sorry it took so long to post back! No, no leakage, the spigot has a rubber gasket on each side, and I screwed it in pretty tight. I've had no issues...even when it's sitting FULL and warmed overnight.

 

[Guest]

Another beekeeper here (Mellifera.. love the name...!)

A few things to cogitate on:

1. Plastic is a good heat insulator.
2. A 5 gallon bucket of anything has a pretty high thermal mass.
3. Heat rises.

OK, so those band heaters (I have one, too) will not be terribly effective on a 5 gallon plastic pail. But you found that out already. By the time you turn them up enough, they begin softening the plastic, compromising the structural integrity of the pail, but also releasing plasticizers into your oils.

These heaters work best on a metal container. They work quite well on 55 gallon drums. But you also have to insulate the container that you are heating, AND you have to place the heater low on the container, allowing the heat to rise inside.

That said, the poster who mentioned a heating pad is correct. Use a heating pad and insulate. I made a box out of iso foam insulation, and it worked very well with a heating pad. Not fast, mind you, but well.

If you want fast, then you should use an immersion heater and a stirrer, to avoid burning.

 

[Mellifera]

Waving to the fellow beek!

 

[Guest]

Beek?

 

[Mellifera]

Shorthand for "beekeeper"!

 

[bombus]

What do you think of this?

I talked to an "idea" friend of mine. He suggested using a turkey deep-fryer.
They run around $100, hold about 7 gallons, come with a lid and a long thermometer, and a proprane heat source.
They come in aluminum or stainless. Aluminum (heat conductivity 250) conducts heat MUCH better than Stainless
(heat conductivity 16), so it would heat up fast, but would also cool down rapidly. If you were deep-frying a turkey, it would get up to temp fast.
Once you heat up the stainless steel, it would take longer to cool down, so oils would stay melted longer.

As long as the temp can be controlled (we don't need oils at 350 degrees- that just might work. I found a couple with spigots for measuring out melted oils.
It may be that my heat belt will work better on one of these than the plastic bucket I started with.

Here's an aluminum one:
http://www.cabelas.com/product/King-Koo ... key+cooker

Here is a stainless steel one:
http://www.basspro.com/Bass-Pro-Shops-S ... 714/123840

 

[Guest]

A couple comments:

First, choose stainless over aluminum. Aluminum is much more reactive, especially to bases like sodium hydroxide. A stainless vessel is just a lot more useful than an aluminum one.

Second. that vessel should have a clad bottom. A lot of the cheap turkey fryers have very thin bottoms. A thick bottom will give better, more even heat transfer to the contents of the pot.

Third, most turkey fryer burners are of the high pressure or jet type. They have a very hot, concentrated flame. You really want a softer, more distributed heat source that can be turned down lower.

Bayou Classic makes good quality burners of all types. Look here:
http://www.pelicansky.com/shop.aspx?cat=65

and this is the type you want:
https://www.pelicansky.com/productdetail.aspx?id=92&cat=65

With a burner like this, you can use a cheap, thin-bottomed pot and not have problems. But I'd still invest in a better quality pot. Take a look at the SS stock pots that are modified for homebrewing. I have a couple of large Volrath pots that I bought years ago, 7 and 15 gallon, that are a joy to use. If you have a good welding shop near you, they can put the spigot and ball valve on any pot, and save you some $. I even had a local shop cut and weld a beer keg, turning it into a stock pot for me.