Big pots, Big burners - what's recommended?

Happy New Year and all that, now, back to brewing:

Building out a 1.5 bbl direct fire system and looking for PROPANE-fired recommendation from you guys for burners. I'll need two - one for the HLT and one for the Boil Kettle, however, the HLT burner is only there to maintain the temp, not raise it as I use my tankless system to fill both the Mash Tun and HLT right at the proper temp.

However the Boil Kettle burner needs to be capable of bringing 55 gallons or wort to and at a rolling boil, so this is where I really need some good ideas.

Any thoughts and recommendations are mighty 'preciated.

Cheers, and happy 2010!

Subscribed!!! I too will soon be doing what you are doing.

Well, I've gone off and done my own research, including contacting John Blichmann about the burners he uses for his Top Tier, since his system uses 55 gallon kettles. He felt that for my size pots (28" x 30" high) which are 67 gallons to the top and will hold 55 gallons of preboil volume, that I'd need 100-120k BTU.

Interestingly he cautioned my against over inflated numbers stated for burners like the KAB6, which I've seen rated at 210k but John estimates more like 68k. His burners are slightly different, though similar looking, use 10 PSI and create 72KBTU/hr.

I found this burner below and spoke extensively with one of the owners of the shop about this burner:



The page it's on is found here: http://www.tejassmokers.com/castironburners.htm about 2/3 the way down.


For those of us planning on building this burner into a stand, some nice features and things to know:
* Use any length shaft between the gas line and the burner itself - it's just 1.25" pipe
* The top of the burner should be 4.5" to 5" below the bottom of the kettle. The gaps around the pot, created by the spokes that hold it up are critical as that is where the waste gases are discharged. The pot sits 3/4" above the rest of the stand to create that gap.
* Although you can use a 30 psi regulator, it won't suck down that much gas.
* The head alone is 6" in diameter and it weighs almost 11 pounds.

That's my huckleberry!

Prost.
Mike

Awesome. Thanks for the update Mike.

Mike, Any updates on the burner?

Yeah, I'm interested in seeing what that big boy can do. Compare it to multiple sp-10 burners if you can.

well as far as i know it works. they keep pumping out beer over at Hess. Dunno if this is the model he went with...

It does work and works well. For our volumes - running off 61 gallons (hot measurement) into our kettles and firing the burner off with about 10 gallons in the boil kettle, it gets the wort to a boil just a few minutes after our 90 minute lauter. It has no problem boiling the crap out of the wort with the 30 psi regulator I have and I'm no where near full open. 55 or so batches later, no problems at all.

Mike...that is great news.

I'm glad to hear that it works! Does it burn through propane like crazy or is it fairly efficient?

id be curious to know that too. Def cheaper still than an electric system in San Diego i believe though.

Bobby M made a setup for his clubs large brewery using three of those burners per vessel that he claimed worked very well.