Bucket brew kettle leak

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dannythemanny

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Evening all,

I'm returning to homebrewing after a 5 year hiatus. I brewed in the US for several years, and have never tried brewing in the UK before. Things are a bit different over here. Namely prefeeence of electric over gas.

In any case... I followed the instructions for making a cheap kettle from a polypropylene bucket with a few holes drilled in to insert tea kettle elements and a valve for draining. My dear old dad was helping me, and instead of drilling a 38mm hole for element, he drilled a 40mm hole. The fit doesn't seem too bad, but it is leaking, so evidently it's not great. We've tried a neoprene type washer on the inside and outside, which helped, but once it got hot in a dry run, it started trickling again.

Any advice on plugging such a leak? Is there any suitable sealant, or should I just abandon this and start afresh with a new bucket and drilling the correct sized hole? Will the 2mm be making the difference?

All help much appreciated.

Cheers!
 
There is some standard bathroom silicone sealant around the tap in my mash tun which has never caused a problem but I would be worried if the element could potentially fall out.
 
Well, I don't reckon the element could fall out. A bit of sealant on the outside seems like a good idea, but I have a couple of concerns.

The first is, it's a kettle, so the sealant will need to be able to withstand boiling temperature for 90 minutes.

The second is, I've noticed a preference for making sure everything is sealed on the inside to avoid getting mould/fungus/nasty stuff growing in the tiny leaky space between inside of the kettle and the sealant on the outside.

Hmm...
 
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