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Maxant Bottling Tank

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Bakersdozen:
G3farms, the tank is not double walled.  The heating element is only in the bottom of the tank.  There is no sight tube and the hole for the thermometer has been plugged.
We were able to get the orange cover off of the thermostat and adjust the temperature setting with a screw driver.  By that time we had removed the gate so I have no way to tell if the adjustment was better, worse, or didn't do anything.
I showed the pictures to a good beekeeping friend.  She suggested the ball valve as well.  They work great and are a lot less expensive.
After a trip to a Mom and Pop hardware store I at least know that I need to find a valve to fit the 1 1/4 inch female opening.  I may go back and get a plastic valve to that I can put water in the tank and get the thermostat adjusted.
Late Friday I got hold of Jake from Maxant.  From my initial description he thought it was a wax melting unit but wasn't sure. He asked for pictures, which I sent. I remeasured the diameter of the tank and I was wrong.  It's only 15 inches, not 17. I don't know how I got that wrong the first time.  He made the statement that after 50 years and a lot of different models, he needed to see pictures to figure out what I had.

iddee:
Go back to the hardware store and get an adapter from 1 1/4 to the size of the ball valve that they have,

G3farms:
That will work fine as a bottling tank.
1 1/4" x 1" bushing
1" x 2" nipple  2 each
1" 90 elbow
1" ball valve
teflon tape
stainless would be preferred but a little more expensive
brass (lead free) will work good also

A word of advice, when screwing the fittings into the tank, or together, use a back up wrench. In other words it will take two wrenches, that way you are pulling against another wrench instead of pulling on the tank tank nipple risking tearing the tank nipple off or distorting the tank side wall.

Bizzy Bee and me went through Blue Ridge Honey Co. extracting room and bottling room, and all of his bottling tanks are water bath heated on the bottom of the tanks also. These are like 500 gallon tanks.

G3farms:
Here is a pic of a 3/4" ball valve I put on a plastic 5 gallon bucket. I did cut the threads off of the bottom of the valve to limit the honey sticking to the threads. Worked really well for bottling smaller containers.

G3farms:
I also put two wraps of "reflectix" insulation on my bottling tank to help hold some heat in. It looks like silver bubble wrap, made for HVAC duct work.

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