How do I adjust the Voltage for an immersion heater?

[AskMyDog]

It's been a long time since my very basic electrical engineering courses in college, and I've gotten myself into a little project that I need help with.

I have a small (1500W) immersion heater that plugs into a standard US wall outlet that I'm using for a DIY sous vide cooker. In large pots of water the immersion heater is fine, but for smaller volumes of the water the heater is too powerful, heating the water too quickly, causing the cooker to overshoot its target temperature.

Is there a simple or a cheap way to basically turn a knob that will lower the voltage of the heater and keep it from heating the water too quickly?

 

[Minder]

You could either make a suitable duty Triac controller (cheapest) , or there is high current dimmer style ones made for power tools that can be purchased.
If you Google AC triac control, it should bring up alot of posts.
Only half dozen components needed, DigiKey is a good source of parts.
M.

 

[AskMyDog]

You could either make a suitable duty Triac controller (cheapest) , or there is high current dimmer style ones made for power tools that can be purchased.
If you Google AC triac control, it should bring up alot of posts.
Only half dozen components needed, DigiKey is a good source of parts.
M.

Great! Thanks!

 

[Bluejets]

Or a rather large diode(20A) for approx. 1/2 power

Have you thought about a simmerstat also?
Used on cooker elements.....supply full grunt for small amounts of time.
Time on depending how far you turn the dial.
Regulation (switching action) is supplied from an internal set bimetal contacts.