Need some help from all of you HERMS experts

I'm about ready to fire my new rig up, and I'm having some issues with the burners. A little info....

-I'm burning propane from a standard grill tank.
-I'm using a standard LP grill regulator (wasn't sure if this was correct or not)
-My gas runs into the back beam just like on a Brutus 10
-Honeywell VR8200A2132 valves
-Honeywell Q314A4586 Pilots
-All converted to LP
-BG14's mounted 4" below the surface of the keggles. I have them converted to run LP, and they're running wide open as far as oxygen/gas goes. This is the only way I could get a decent flame from them..

I only automated my HLT and MLT, so my boil is all manual. When I fire up the boil kettle burner, it works great. The other two seem as if they don't have enough pressure running to them to create a good flame. It took me 35 minutes today to bring 4 gallons of water from 75 to boiling. That just seems rediculous in my opinion, but I'm not sure if that's the norm or not.

What's happening is I'm noticing a buildup of gas underneath the skirt of the keg and it's causing my flames to be very "crazy".

I figured the best way to show everyone what's happening is to take a video. Here it is...

[ame]http://youtu.be/G5fQxkbjWF8[/ame]

So...do I need to cut vents in the skirts of my kegs? Is the regulator the wrong type for these valves? Or are there any adjustments I can make on the valves themselves in order to provide more pressure.

Thanks for any help you guys can give me...

Good vid, it helps a lot! Running at low pressure you'll need to open up the orifices a little. How much? I dunno... Measure the current size and start going up about 2 sizes at a time. #54 drill will most likely be the max you want to go.
One more thing we've done is to give our burners a manual override to be run straight from a valve. You'll need a second solenoid to avoid gas being pushed through the pilot tube.

We are discovering a real inconsistency with the burners we're getting. We've started checking every burner orifice.
I want so bad to make my own burner and stop buying foreign slave labor crap.

I bought orifices designed for LP, you think I still need to drill them out more?

I assume you've played with the air shutters?
I know, it's a dumb question...
Do you have a set of pin drills to measure the size?

Expert: X in mathematics is an unknown quantity + Spurt is a drop of water under pressure = unknown quantity under pressure...

OneHoppyGuy said:

I assume you've played with the air shutters?
I know, it's a dumb question...
Do you have a set of pin drills to measure the size?

Click to expand...

I have played with the shutters. I found that they worked best wide open. Ive got calipers that I can use to get a measurement.

There's definitely something quite wrong with that flame pattern in the video, particularly the bright yellow column just to the right of center. I'd check for a void or crack in the casting. And running the air damper wide open definitely doesn't match up with my experience using a pair of BG-14 burners, which run best around half-open...

Cheers!

Does the flame burn clean when the kettle isn't there?

day_trippr said:

There's definitely something quite wrong with that flame pattern in the video, particularly the bright yellow column just to the right of center. I'd check for a void or crack in the casting. And running the air damper wide open definitely doesn't match up with my experience using a pair of BG-14 burners, which run best around half-open...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

The flame in the center is actually the pilot light. Even though it's very low when the rest of the burner isn't lit, as soon as it gets all the buildup of gas underneath the keg, it goes crazy.

microbusbrewery said:

Does the flame burn clean when the kettle isn't there?

Click to expand...

Yes, I can get a MUCH better flame without the keg on top...which leads me to believe it's an oxygen thing. Not sure what the best way to fix it is though.

If you are getting the flame column from the pilot you may need to try and restrict gas flow through this. Possible the gas is taking the least resistance path through the pilot. One easy way to test would be to shut the pilot off after lit. Could be dumping so much fuel you are suffocating the combustion, and the skirt is keeping the high CO levels in from poor combustion.

bstewart said:

If you are getting the flame column from the pilot you may need to try and restrict gas flow through this. Possible the gas is taking the least resistance path through the pilot. One easy way to test would be to shut the pilot off after lit. Could be dumping so much fuel you are suffocating the combustion, and the skirt is keeping the high CO levels in from poor combustion.

Click to expand...

I've backed off the pilot flame as much as I can. If I go any lower, it won't be able to light my burners.

Here's a video of the burner running without a keg on top of it. I'm still not happy with the flame, but wasn't sure if this was normal for most people. It's not turned all the way up...this was as good as I could get without having a ton of yellow flame. Again...the pilot only gets that high when the rest of the burner is on...when it's just the pilot, it's actually pretty small.

http://youtu.be/r4-n2iG6lZA

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

I've backed off the pilot flame as much as I can. If I go any lower, it won't be able to light my burners.

Here's a video of the burner running without a keg on top of it. I'm still not happy with the flame, but wasn't sure if this was normal for most people. It's not turned all the way up...this was as good as I could get without having a ton of yellow flame. Again...the pilot only gets that high when the rest of the burner is on...when it's just the pilot, it's actually pretty small.

http://youtu.be/r4-n2iG6lZA

Click to expand...

Hmm, except for your pilot that looks like a decent flame...lots of blue. I'm using the 6 inch burner from agrisupply on my setup. I converted it to natural gas and during my testing I had a similar issue; no pot = blue, pot = some blue with a lot of yellow.

My boil kettle is just an eight gallon stockpot, so I picked up some round bar (I can't remember if it's 3/8" or 1/2"...most likely 3/8") and welded several small pieces to the top of my stand. These raised the pot just enough to vent the combustion gases and give me a nice blue flame.

Since you're using a keggle, it's probably worth a shot to drill some vents in the skirt. Hopefully that works, but I think you still might get some soot from your pilot.

I'm in the exact same boat as you, except I'm using the low pressure LP oriface from Brewer's Hardware. Were you able to add some vents to the keggle?

digitalhifi said:

I'm in the exact same boat as you, except I'm using the low pressure LP oriface from Brewer's Hardware. Were you able to add some vents to the keggle?

Click to expand...

I'm using the same orifice on my burners. I'm in the process of venting now. I placed 1" blocks underneath my kegs and fired it up...the burners worked great at that point. So...I'm positive they need more oxygen. I'll be cutting vents in the skirt of the keg on wednesday, and I'll report back on how it works. I also replaced the regulator I was using with a Marshall 290 2-Stage regulator and it works much better.

Sounds good. I'll keep checking back.

I fiddled with my burners today and now they seem to work great even with a keg on top. The only thing I varied was the tightness of the orifice valve to the burner itself. Instead of worrying about the position of the valve I hand tightened and then used a wrench to tighten about a quarter turn. Voila!

Is your burner height adjustable? Perhaps you could simply increase the distance between the burner and keggle to get a better gas vent rather than dealing with adding vent holes. Same principal, I guess it's just whatever is easier for you.