Water Pan safety measures.
To assure that you don’t let your water pan boil dry and warp or crack try these techniques:
1. Place marbles in your water pan. When the water boils, they will rattle nicely. If the water boils dry, they will stop making noise and you will know to add water.
2. There is no need to have a furious boil. Just a constant roll that produces steam is all that is necessary.
3. Use a timer! Set at the beginning of every process. Set initially for 40 minutes. Check water level when it goes off and reset for 10 - 15 minutes. (this is how I time my processing)
4. The Mehu-Liisa is very efficient in its work and it is rare to need more than an hour to process. After that, you will start to extract bitterness from stems, cores and seeds/pits.
5. As always, check the water pan periodically to see if it needs water. If you find that the pan is empty, DON”T ADD ANY WATER! as this may cause it to warp. Let the pan cool, then fill again and restart processing.
Try all these methods. Eventually, you will come up with your favorite method.