Newbie Propane Burner question.

Hey everyone. I have done a few small scale all grain brews and I have finally started to upgrade my set up. My first purchase is a 62L pot that I plan to us as a boiler. I plan to slowly add to/modify my set up but for now I want to brew and let my set up evolve. My question is about the propane burners I've seen for sale and some of you who are using turkey deep fryers and what not.

I notice that many of you have tall and narrow pots in your set up. Mine is short and wide (approx. 20" wide x 16" tall). What would be a better configuration for my propane burner? The tall and narrow pots I would assume means you can get away with a smaller diameter burner. My pot being so wide, do I need to have a larger burner or can I get away with a smaller one? I also want to add that I am on a tight budget. I would assume more flame in contact with the pot means hotter faster. I thought I would come here and ask the pros about it. Thanks!

Flame over the whole bottom is good. Makes for even heat.
Look at BTU's when you shop. Turkey fryer is probably about 40,000 BTU's. I have seen about 225,000 BTU units available.
I got a 188,000 BTU unit through Amazon.com. The higher the heat, the faster the water gets there, the less time you waste while making beer.

Bayou Classic SP10 for $50 on Amazon (free shipping since it's over $25); great little burner that gets the job done. Do a search and you'll find tons of great reviews on this forum for this burner. I've got a 10 gallon megapot; the SOB is 17" wide, 12" tall - it fits just fine on this burner and gets 6 gallons to a boil in about 20-25 minutes

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000291GBQ/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

45_70sharps said:

Flame over the whole bottom is good. Makes for even heat.
Look at BTU's when you shop. Turkey fryer is probably about 40,000 BTU's. I have seen about 225,000 BTU units available.
I got a 188,000 BTU unit through Amazon.com. The higher the heat, the faster the water gets there, the less time you waste while making beer.

Click to expand...

To a point. It's an example of diminishing returns. I use a SQ14 (55,000BTUs) and it gets 10gal of water to a boil in ~30mins. A burner with 4 times the output is not going to get the water to boil in a fourth of the time BUT it will use 4 times the propane.

I really like the SQ14 and give it my vote! :rockin:

SpikeBrewing said:

To a point. It's an example of diminishing returns. I use a SQ14 (55,000BTUs) and it gets 10gal of water to a boil in ~30mins. A burner with 4 times the output is not going to get the water to boil in a fourth of the time BUT it will use 4 times the propane.

I really like the SQ14 and give it my vote! :rockin:

Click to expand...

You're right, to a point.
My burner can burn a lot more gas, but I can turn it down also.
You don't have to have as much power as mine has but it gets water hot fast and doesn't burn a lot when it's turned after I get it up to temperature.
I also know that whatever I want to do in the future, I've got enough burner.

Gabba said:

Bayou Classic SP10 for $50 on Amazon (free shipping since it's over $25); great little burner that gets the job done. Do a search and you'll find tons of great reviews on this forum for this burner. I've got a 10 gallon megapot; the SOB is 17" wide, 12" tall - it fits just fine on this burner and gets 6 gallons to a boil in about 20-25 minutes

http://www.amazon.com/Bayou-Classic-SP10-High-Pressure-Outdoor/dp/B000291GBQ

Click to expand...

I'm probably going to buy this burner this week, but I was wondering about the BTUs. Bayou Classic's site says it can go up to 185,000 BTUs. Do you get this result of you crank it all the way up, our do you have to modify it in some way. At $50 this seems hard to beat.

That's what I got.
It cranks out the heat just the way it comes out of the box.
I did buy a bigger propane tank, I think it's about 10 gallon. I haven't checked but after two batches I think I'm somewhere around a half a tank left. That's with mash, sparge and boil. Not too bad. I can set the boil the way I want it and walk away. I can wait to heat my sparge water till my mash is close to done.
It works great. I crank it up and my water is getting hot very fast. When I reach a full boil I can turn it way down and get it to boil just the way I want it to.

Some time I'll time how long it takes to get up to mash temp, and how long for a boil. I'm just not paying that much attention to those details when I'm brewing.

I'm very happy with that burner.