Burner Help!

I've got a sub-par stove in my apartment that is not capable of boiling 5 gallons of liquid. I am now looking to buy a burner that can:

1. Bring large volumes of liquid to a boil as quickly as possible.
2. Be used indoors without significant risk of burning my apartment to the ground.

The burners I've looked at are in the NorthernBrewer magazine (Low Profile Banjo Burner and Blichman Floor Burner). I fear these are not apartment friendly.

Does anyone know of any burner options for a beginner brewer like me?

Thanks so much!

no gas burners of any type are apartment friendly due to fumes. you might want to look at brewing 3 gallons, then adding 2 gallons of water when finished

+1 to lumpher

By far the cheapest and easiest solution is just doing a partial boil.

Other than that... I hope you don't fear working with electronics.

I assume there must be some sort of drawback to doing a partial boil else why wouldn't that be standard protocol?

Do either of you know of any drawbacks to the partial boil method?

Lower hops utilization is one I believe, so you will need to use a bit more hops.

Darker color due to more carmalization of wort.

hypergolic is right with hop utilization. However, through all the 5 gallon extract batches I did before I had the ability to do a full boil, my beers all turned out just fine and delicious. I did not know that hop utilization was affected.

If you are concerned about it a search on here might give you a little info on the corrections to the hop schedule but I'm not sure because I have never looked.

Either way if you haven't read "How to Brew" ( you can read it for free at www.howtobrew.com ) chapter 1.1 - crash course in brewing, describes a run through of a brew day while using a partial boil. Great book/website its worth checking out, a lot of people including myself have used it to start brewing.

Do not use any open-flame burner indoors.

It WILL kill you. Carbon monoxide is odorless, tasteless and you won't even realize what's going on until you're overcome.

If you can't use a burner outdoors, you may be stuck with partial-boil options. The problem with getting a larger electric "burner" going is that it will draw very large amounts of power, which may not be good for the wiring in an apartment.

Thanks for all the responses! I will attempt the partial boil and pray for the best. I look forward to the days of home-ownership.

If you have a patio or balcony, you can do it out there. As long as you're OUTSIDE. Or organize a brew party at someone else's house and pay them with a sixer of your finished beer, or advance them part of a batch that's already done.

I've been doing 2.5 gal boils since I started brewing with great results! I only have a 3 gallon pot, but working on a 15 gallon AG setup. A little less hop utilization with partial boils, but you probably won't notice.