Minimum burner BTU - 10 gallon batches in 15.5 gallon keggle
 

I'm going to be moving to boiling in a keggle soon and have only done 3 gallon boils on the stove. Naturally this necessitates using a propane burner outside and I'm wondering, as I shop for said burner, what is the minimum BTU rating I should look for?

TIA

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100121665&N=10000003+9 0401

I have this one. I think it's 40,000 or 50,000 BTU. You could get away with less but this one's $50 and works great.

:tank:

I can't answer the 'minimum' question, but here is the one I use. I've only used it for one batch so far, but it takes about an hour to go from tap temp to boiling. I have a 30qt turkey fryer that used to be my boil kettle, but now it is used for steeping grains while the keggle heats up the rest of my water. I was aiming for 13.5g pre-boil volume, but when I added 9# DME it went to ~14.5g and I had one small boilover, but no problems after that. I'll reduce my volume by about a gallon next time to account for the DME. When I move to AG (soon), I'll probably just use the 30qt turkey fryer as my HLT and then the keggle will only have to heat from mash temp to boiling. Should work out great.

EDIT: devaspawn's much shorter reply beat me to it ;)

That's the same one I have. You can decrease the to boil time by increasing gas flow and air flow to get the most efficient flame (blue with maybe the slightest yellow at the tips).

:tank:

Wasn't difficult keeping a nice boil going, I was just afraid the Kansas wind was going to blow out the flame since I turned it down so low (it didn't).
http://gallery.me.com/baron.ken/1000...12178195730001
Click image for larger version.

When I bought my first (and so far) only burner, I opted for a jet burner since I have a 12.5 gal brew kettle and go with full volume boils. I didn't want to get stuck with my only burner being too small.

Ace Hardware Outlet sold me a 200K BTU burner (HVDT12) for $21 and the host/regulator (PRES3HOS) for $25 + $20 shipping.

This little guy works great! The only problems I have with it are 1) even a slight breeze carries off a lot of the heat and 2) it uses what I feel to be a lot of propane.

I think both of these problems will be resolved when I build my heat shroud for it.

I HIGHLY recommend the KAB5 banjo burner. The thing appears to be made for heating 15 gallon kegs.

I can't get the fire cool enough to not boilover my 9gallon pot.

If you build your own stand, this one is hard to beat. It may be ugly, but its a fast burner. http://www.agrisupply.com/product.asp?pn=30295&cn=5400001&bhcd2=1218669125

This is the burner I am thinking about ordering. My only question is will a single regulator off of a single propane tank, flowing through 1/2 black pipe, be enough to keep 3 of these 170K burners going full throttle? More than likely I would only run 2, but you never knwo!

I am talking about the burners posted by beerthirty above from www.agrisupply.com

I run 2 with no problem going from high pressure regulator to 1/2 black pipe manifold then through 1/4 copper tubing to each burner. Just got my third, haven't set it up yet but I foresee no problems.
Make sure your stand is very sturdy. I have bowed mine slightly from the full weight of 2 keggles on it under full throttle burners. The metal stand actually blued from the heat.