Blichmann Burner Tips / Tricks

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dschoemaker

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Looking for some tips or tricks from the vast experience here at HBT. Just bought a Blichmann Burner and used it in my brewday for the first time Saturday. I viewed a few youtube videos to get a general idea.

However, it just seemed to take forever to heat the water to boiling (over an hour for 7.5 gallons in a Keggle). If I had the regulator up to full the flame was full on orange, dialed it down and it seemed not to heat fast.

Any help on this or any other tips or tricks would be appreciated.

Thanks

Dave
 
I don't own it so I can't give any direct advise but I would look to see if there is enough air flow around the flame. That would prevent it from getting really hot.
 
Ya I'm not sure you want the flame to be full on orange. Adjust your dampener on the front.


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I was shocked how slow it was first time too but found that it took me a little while to learn to dial it in, adjusting the gas and the air to avoid both yellow and "floating" flames. Now it takes me about 0.03 minutes per Fahrenheit-Gallon.

Assuming you're heating 7.5G from 70F to 212F, that's roughly 1000 F-Gs so you should be able to do it in about 30 minutes.
 
I was shocked how slow it was first time too but found that it took me a little while to learn to dial it in, adjusting the gas and the air to avoid both yellow and "floating" flames. Now it takes me about 0.03 minutes per Fahrenheit-Gallon.

Assuming you're heating 7.5G from 70F to 212F, that's roughly 1000 F-Gs so you should be able to do it in about 30 minutes.

Can you share where you have the regulator and air flow set on yours as a starting point?

Thanks

Dave
 
If you can't get the orange to go away with the above suggestions, I would take the manifold apart and run a small bottle brush thru everything. There are some tiny spiders that love propane and will build a small web in the oriface area. That web is as fine as women's panty hose.. I found this out because the water heater in my RV was sooting up the outside of the RV.. No adjustment would work.. then a friendly camper told me why :)
 
I know this problem as I had it too. Ignore the instructions and open up the air damper nearly all the way. That's what I had to do to get past the yellow flames which will heat very slowly and also soot the bottom of your pot. I have my air damper nearly all the way open, just an ever so slight pinch dialed back. Someone else also had this problem and did this and got his working too.


Rev.
 
I typically have the damper about 80% open and the regulator set to just before the flames start floating.
 
fwiw, running on bottled propane I set the air dampers on my two Blichmanns half open years ago and have never had to change them since.

btw, don't open the burner regulator before you open the cylinder valve. That can easily cause the excess flow check valve inside the ACME nut to close which will result in a pissant gas flow - enough to light the burner but not enough for it to ever reach full output (by a mile).

Always keep the regulator knob fully closed before opening the tank valve and it's highly unlikely you'll ever trip that check valve...

Cheers!
 
Of course for really takin' care of business you should just crank up the Blichmann Burner Overdrive.

I'll leave now ...
 

The confusing thing about those instructions is they tell you to start with the damper half open, which for me instantly produced yellow flame. Then they say, "If it is yellow, there is not adequate air and you will need to increase the air flow", which is true, but they don't tell you that you'll first have an even larger yellow flame increase while opening up the air damper until it hits past a certain point, at which it retracts from yellow and changes over to the normal blue. So when I would start opening the air damper it "appeared" to be getting worse and more out of control which would cause me to close it back again. Finally I got tired of it and just tried it full open and bingo, blue flame. From there I adjusted the damper to close a pinch so the flames aren't leaping off the nozzles and was good to go.


Rev.
 
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