The muffin pans are made of aluminum or something like that? If you said, I've missed it.
And you're going to "seal" them in with food grade silicone, or something like that?
If that survives a season of boiling I'll be stunned. Heck, if if it survives a session of boiling I'll be surprised. But the proof of anything is in the doing of it. Let us know how the experiment turns out (and whether you can drink the water you've boiled with the sealant - leaching chemicals out of that stuff at high temperatures is also a concern, though I suppose some of the packaged silicones are rated for food contact - but usually "incidental", like on a countertop seam, not quite the same as being boiled in the pot with it for hours.)
If it is aluminum in a stainless pan, I think the different change in size with changing temperature is going to tear your glue joint open. I think there was also something said about aluminum being attacked by boiling sap on a different thread.
Holding drop tubes in place while soldering is done by flaring the tubes, and letting gravity hold them in place while you solder from the inside/top.
Last edited by Ecnerwal; 01-25-2012 at 08:44 PM.
Two turkey pans on cinderblocks in the 1970's
4x5 no-baffle stainless pan, built sugarhouse ~1980 - buckets and snowshoes. 17 gallons in best year. Went off to college, nothing for 25+ years.
Thinking about getting going again in new location, in a small way. •• Cats, Coffee, Chocolate...Vices to Live By.