The heater is fine for heating water, but the concentrated heat at the
surface of the heating element is more than I'd prefer to come into
contact with my grapes/wine. It won't hurt you when you get slight
carmelization in the must, though I'd expect a bit of oxidized flavor (a
la sherry). You be the judge. Gene

alien wrote:
> I was perusing a catalogue in my local home brew shop recently and came
> across an immersion heater that you basically plug in and drop in a
> bucket. It was designed for beer use, but I was thinking of the
> possibilities of using it for wine and mead. I usually only use enough
> hot water to dissolve the sugar and, depending on the wine, cover the
> fruit/vegetable matter for extraction. I would advise removing the
> heater before adding sugar. My next batch of mead will probably use a
> raw local honey so I could use it to heat water up enough to pasteurise
> it, should I wish to do so.
>
> Has anyone got any experience with these? Any other thoughts? It would
> be a lot easier than filling up a few large pans for hot water, and it
> was less than half the price of a 2 gallon kettle I was looking at
> recently.