Definitely not ACE or similar stores. You may find it in an industrial supply house - and Houston has its fair share. If that proves futile, then - http://www.mcmaster.com/#loctite-567/=66gpnu

Eric—excellent idea as usual. I used Loctite's dealer locator to find a long list of them. I found United Refrigeration in a hurry, and they happened to have their catalog online. It looks like they list 567 as p/n LT56747. Anyway Mario they have 3 locations in Houston, 2 of them pretty close to us... you could give them a call and you might find it in stock there. Tough to say, I have no idea if they're nice about 'little people' (as opposed to large industrial/commercial clients, etc.). In my experience, most of these places (Swagelok, Beswick, Bass Tool, McMaster) have been pretty helpful to me and helped me find what I need.

hello, I have used the thicker yellow "gas" teflon tape twice now to put a heater element in my steam boiler in the Brewtus. No problems, and the removal was easy. The hard part was cleaning off the factory thread sealant. - Dennis

If you don't already have the yellow tape, I've had incidences where three wraps of white tefon tape didn't do the job, but five wraps did.

Be careful not to let the tape go over the top thread, cuz when you screw the thing together, tape above the first thread sheers-off and ends up somewhere else in the machine.

Thanks for the advice.

Actually, I managed to have the technician who worked on my machine to come to my place next week, therefore, I will make sure he removes the blue threadlocker and apply a food safe threadsealer or teflon tape.

The stubborn leak nightmare is over....... The technician never showed up........

First, I tried a toxic thread blocker, then I was lectured , then I stupidly tried yellow teflon tape only..... and it did not work. Finally, I used the recommended thread SEALANT Loctite 567

Thank you for the advice.

This heating element thread design is NOT intended to use a sealant of any kind. Straight pipe threads are designed to draw the element against the flange using a teflon/epdm/fiber gasket.

These things leak all the time after about a year and need to be re-torqued, especially if epdm is used.

A Teflon based non-hardening sealer is workable if the mating surfaces are screwed up, but a gasket is the only seal that you should use if possible.

Only tapered threads are designed to use the threads as a sealing surface. Straight threads will always provide a capillary conduit for leakage. This had a gasket in it, absolutely

Loctite is not designed to fill gaps for thread sealing purposes and only blue loctite has some limited capacity to fill thread gaps.

Michael, originally the heating element on my Brewtus did have a thread sealant and wrapped teflon tape instead of real gasket at the end.

When I detected the leak I contacted Whole Latte Love and they told me that in fact what I saw was a thread locker and that the latest Brewtus IIIs were coming with a lock tight one. The also told me that if that was the case, I would have to send them the machine for repair because they would have to remove the boiler to remove the element. They also confirmed that there was not teflon gasket sealing the element.
I was lucky that mine had a soft sealant.

I have the feeling that when they were talking about a threadlocker they meant a thread sealant. It makes more sense since the element eventually would have to be removed or replaced at some time.

I sucessfully applied the recommended Loctite 567 one week ago after several unsucessful attempts of applying just teflon tape around the thread. I even tried yellow teflon tape.......

Loctite 567 is not designed for non tapered threads:

Loctite® 567™ PST® Thread Sealant withstands temperatures to 400°F with excellent solvent resistance. Locks and seals tapered pipe threads and fittings, including high pressure applications. Disassembles with hand tools.

This doesn't stop people from using it that way. We use a Teflon based sealant from Italy all the time because we are lazy. Because the product is suitable for gas fittings, which are typically non tapered, we don't think its an issue for smaller fitting with relatively fine threads.

Elements are different, though, with much larger threads requiring much larger tolerances for filling gaps between the teeth. Not all thread lock products have the capability to fill threads and the sealant has to conform to the spec of the thread gap.

I am not saying that it doesn't work because we do it here in some applications. I am saying that to use it in place of a teflon gasket (the old rubber o-rings home machines used to use failed all the time) is a shade tree mechanic alternative to a professional solution.

Regardless of whether or not it came from the factory that way, its still wrong. Even if it works.

Indeed, I think that Expobar/WLL should get some flak for this issue. It's really, really shoddy not to provide a teflon gasket for a machine that clearly would support one. FWIW, Michael, Mario is no mechanic or plumber. It'd be worthwhile for him to find a proper gasket, and he'll probably have to do that next time he gets an inevitable leak, but for a factory making the Brewtus to cut a corner this tiny is utterly inexcusable IMO, and of course owners have no way of knowing this till the leak hits—naturally just out of warranty.