Burner Questions

Hello all, I have been away for abit but im back at it working on my setup. I have all the stuff for my kegs. I am working on my stand and burners right now. I have the stand built and primed as of today but im still not real sure on burner height or placement. I have looked around on the net and havent really found any good information on as to how high they need to be from botom of the keg or what size burners will actually work. Could anyone chime in on some information to help me along? Thanks in advance

Hi

Different burners will have different mounting constraints. I'd pick a burner first and then work out how it'll mount. Do you have the burners already? If not, banjo burners are a popular choice.

Bob

No i dont have the burners yet. I was wanting to get some more input before i went and bought them. As pricey as some i hate to buy the wrong ones. I see some peolple use the smaller 6" style where others use the big 10" style. I dont want it to take 2 hours to bring to a boil but i dont want to be overkill with them. Does the 10" style have problem with the flame coming up around the outside of the kegs?

Hi

The choice is actually a bit more complex than just the fire around the base. If the burner is "to big" (in terms of BTU's) it'll be a real pain to control. That said, most people seem to be happy with 10" Banjo's (that's what I have).

I run pots rather than kegs so i have no data on fire around the edge. I do use some "crafted" stainless steel to keep the flames away from the site gauges and ball valves.

Bob

I'd go with the 10" Banjo's for your setup. A buddy of mine uses them with keggles and swares by them!

I just got the banjos for my setup. They work really well. I did a dry run this weekend and it was holding all the temps needed really well.. very pleased..

I have 3 of the most common, the 32tip jet burner, the banjo jet burner, and the banjo 10" burner. The banjo burners are user friendly, The banjo Jet burner is most universal IMHO (least powerfull). The big 10" banjo burner on high press LP rocks (it will blow flames up around the keg on high if it is to close, it can keep a low setting to). But place ment of the burner is the problem, you will never get the highest and lowest performance out of the 10" banjo becasue it has such a large range. The 32 tip wok burners are as hot as the sun, light these bad boys up and they will burn your face off!! I am a commerical heating guy and these are powerfull burners that can be hard to run on low settings. The high setting is just crazy. What size batch are your going to do? I'll go with the other guys and say the banjo 10" burner is good. From the top of the 10" burner to the kettel with air vents your looking at about 4-6" ballpark. IMHO

I will be doing 5 and 10 gallon batches. I have pics posted of my stand. I see alot of people have like a round shroud or wind guard around the burner also? Do i need that? I just want to make sure im right before i spend the money

PorterBoy said:

I will be doing 5 and 10 gallon batches. I have pics posted of my stand. I see alot of people have like a round shroud or wind guard around the burner also? Do i need that? I just want to make sure im right before i spend the money

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If you plan on brewing outdoors you'll want to have some kind of windscreen.

One tip, make sure there's enough clearance to vent the combustion gases, else you'll end up with a yellow flame and a lot of soot. I use a kettle so I added 1/2" rod to raise the kettle off the stand. I've heard of guys with keggles drilling extra holes in the skirt to vent the gases.

Re distance, I use the 6" burner from agrisupply that I converted to natural gas. I started out with distance from the top of the burner to the bottom of the pot at 5". It worked fine but I thought it could stand to be closer so it's now at 4" and seems to work a little better.

Thanks. It will be in a garage with the door open so there shouldnt be alot of wind. I had thought about drilling holes in the skirt on the back to let out te gases but wasnt sure on that idea. I guess as far as placement goes i will just have to buy the burners and mess with it. Do you have a picture or link to your 6" burners? The cheapest i can find the 10" burners for are about 50$ where as some of the 6" ones go about 17$

This is where I got mine from. It took a week or so to ship but its a decent price.

http://bayouclassicdepot.com/propane_cast_iron_burner.htm

I use these high pressure cast iron burners.
http://www.agrisupply.com/high-pressure-cast-iron-burner-cb-btu/p/30295/

I had one just like it prior to building my stand and it worked good so I stayed with what I knew, and they are really cheap in price so i figured if i ever want to change them out for a more expensive burner i wasn't out but a few bucks.

I have no complants with them, i have three keggles and built a similer stand to yours. so far so good.

here is a link to the 6 inch burner i think was mentioned above.
http://www.agrisupply.com/burner-cast-low-pressure-multi-hole-btu-dia/p/40282/

good luck, what ever you go with will work out just fine.

rekoob said:

I use these high pressure cast iron burners.
http://www.agrisupply.com/high-pressure-cast-iron-burner-cb-btu/p/30295/

I had one just like it prior to building my stand and it worked good so I stayed with what I knew, and they are really cheap in price so i figured if i ever want to change them out for a more expensive burner i wasn't out but a few bucks.

I have no complants with them, i have three keggles and built a similer stand to yours. so far so good.

here is a link to the 6 inch burner i think was mentioned above.
http://www.agrisupply.com/burner-cast-low-pressure-multi-hole-btu-dia/p/40282/

good luck, what ever you go with will work out just fine.

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Which is better the high pressure or low pressure?

This is an old photo but the burners haven't changed. They are the cast iron ones mentioned in the previous post. My second one with these burners. Look at how they are adjustable under the kettle and HLT. That is 3/4 inch quare tube welded to the frame and the T that the burner is attached to is one inch. There is a hole drilled through the 1 inch with a 1/4-20 nut welded over the hole. There is an eye bolt screwed into the nut and it bottoms out on the 3/4 square. Very adjustable and takes only seconds to adjust.

Closer view of burner mounts

like the adjustments! I made mine adjustable also, i used 5/16" threaded rod and flat bar between to bolt the burner to. then just adjust the nuts up or down if adjustment is needed.

Oh, I also made my stand out of 3/16" thick 2x2 steel so i could drill and tap right into the stand. it's a bit heavier then i could be but it turned out awesome.

Yes i made mine out of heavy wall 2x2 tube. I had a bunch of it laying around and i hate building stands or tables with angle iron. Id rather heavy it heavy and secure than light an flimsy. Plus i usually got a couple good backs around for moving. It really isnt as heavy as what i thought it would be. I was looking at those HP burners. I ordered 3 of em. Heck for the price it was worth a try. Thanks so much for everyones input

I've been using the BayouClassic cast burners but thinking about the next build and found these Has anyone used them, or any opinions pro/con?

TIA

PorterBoy said:

Thanks. It will be in a garage with the door open so there shouldnt be alot of wind. I had thought about drilling holes in the skirt on the back to let out te gases but wasnt sure on that idea. I guess as far as placement goes i will just have to buy the burners and mess with it. Do you have a picture or link to your 6" burners? The cheapest i can find the 10" burners for are about 50$ where as some of the 6" ones go about 17$

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Yeah, I brew in the garage too. You should be fine without a windscreen unless you're right at the door and it's windy outside.

This is the one I ordered from agrisupply.

CaptainDucman said:

I've been using the BayouClassic cast burners but thinking about the next build and found these Has anyone used them, or any opinions pro/con?

TIA

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I have never used these but I like the looks of them, if I ever have the need to change burners I think these are the ones I will go to. I know there are plenty of people on here using this type of burner.

Good luck.

I've been really happy with my BG14 burners.
I bought them on Amazon for a few dollars more. Their QC is notoriously bad, so if there are any problems I can Amazon replace it for free (with free return shipping). The peace of mind is worth the little bit more.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009JXYTG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I got my burners in the mail today. Hopefully i can get in the garage this weekend and get my mounts welded up. One more step closer to beer!!!

Hi

Since those burners don't feed air up the middle like a banjo burner, you may need to space them a bit further from the bottom of your kettle to get reasonable combustion. I'm not talking about feet, just a few extra inches.

Bob

Thats why i made my burner mounts adjustable so I could fine tune whatever burner I put on the stand. I have been happy with the burners I am using but never know if I will replace them sometime down the road and I didn't want to grind/weld on the stand to do that.

rekoob said:

Thats why i made my burner mounts adjustable so I could fine tune whatever burner I put on the stand. I have been happy with the burners I am using but never know if I will replace them sometime down the road and I didn't want to grind/weld on the stand to do that.

Click to expand...

Hi

Exactly the right idea. Allow for some range in the mount so you can fiddle it if you need to. Much easier to do if you plan for it than to try to kludge it in later.

Bob

Well i got my lines all ran and my burners hooked up. I wanted to do a test boil to try some things out and see how long it takes to get to a boil with what i got. Im still waiting on my ball valves and camlocks so i just used a cap. I did about 11 gal and brought it to a nice boil about 215 ish in about an hour and ten minutes. Is that an ok time? Im going to mess around with lowering the burners a little more to maybe get a lil more heat. I think my burner was a tad closer than it shoulda been. My Main question is some sort of heat shield. I got a 3 piece valve and am worried about it getting to hot from the heat thats coming up around from the sides. I was thinking of cutting some plate out to make a gusset in the corners as a shield or i could take some high temp insulation and put in the cracks. It got a little hotter around the ball valve area then i wanted.

Easiest is to pinch a rectangle of metal sheet between the keggle rim and the top rail. Could be anything from stainless sheet down to aluminum flashing.

My Blichmann burners came with 6"x10" pieces of 18ga SS for this purpose, and it's worked great for that, such that not only are the ball valve and sight gauge in pristine shape, even the vinyl ball valve handle cover looks brand new...

Cheers!

Got my gas line mounted today and cut me out some gussets. Im going to try these out later and see how much heat that cuts down.

Cut a couple vent openings in the keg skirt, the hot gasses will go out there instead of up the sides. Two 4" wide X 1-1/2" tall openings at the 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock positions will work wonders for flaming valve handle problem. Here is how I modified the boil kettle for the automated system https://picasaweb.google.com/kevin.ladue/BoilKettle#5225673141104801778, just reduce width to 4" and use 2 openings. There is a vent boot that covers the opening and vents through the roof so I can brew indoors without the burner gasses filling the brew shed https://picasaweb.google.com/kevin.ladue/WetTestProgressPhotoS#5225298749171009138.