flame air space with banjo burner

Tried searching for this with my phone. Not really getting the answer/advice im looking for. Partially because I don't know what to call it. I've got a 40 gallon kettle that I made up a stand to use with a banjo burner. My "wind screen" is a 16" flywheel that I got from work. I machined the center hub out and mounted the banjo inside and its 1.5 inches to the top. Now my question, my pot sits flush, so there is no gap between flywheel burner base and the pot. All flame goes downward. Should I have an air gap between the burner and the pot? I do biab. My batch Sunday was 17 gallons and it came to a boil fairly easily I guess.

Thanks for any info

Yes you need a gap for the flame to up and the hot gasses to get out. I "think" the BG14 will need 6-8 inches between the burner and kettle.

You should have at least some gap between the shield and the pot. Even about a 1/2 inch should be enough to properly vent the air under the kettle/pot and still allow for fast boils.

I don't have my burners here, or I'd check to see how much space/gap is between the shield on my Blichmann burner and where the kettle goes. It's much less than on my Bayou burner (the Blichmann uses less gas and gets to a boil faster).

You'll want enough gap so that you can easily light the burner with the kettle/pot on it. Blichmann solves that by giving you two holes to both view the flame, and light it. The top gap isn't setup so that you can use that to light the element, but you can view the flame, if you have a 10 gallon kettle (which I do have)... Once you go larger than that, you really can't view the flame from above, but use the two holes.

I've read where people are cutting off the legs on the banjo stand to raise the burner height. That's where I got my 1.5 inch dimension. I can bore a few 1" ish size holes in the flywheel no problem to help view the flame.. I wonder how much the air gap will improve my boil time.

Make something so that you can adjust the gap between the top of the flywheel and the bottom of the kettle. That way you can experiment over a few batches until you get it where you like it. I would start with about a 1/2" gap and see how it goes from there.

I'm pretty sure the holes in the Blichmann burner are less than 1". It's enough to get a lighter in, with room to spare, and see where it's going.

It's not really the burner height that's an issue IMO, it's the shielding height that's the issue. With the KAB4 burner I have, the shield stops far lower than with the Blichmann. So you have more impact from the wind. I like the element from both the KAB4 and Blichmann burners (same element) since it provides a nice even heat.

Does fire shoot out the side holes on your blichmann? Im going to put a grill igniter in eventually...

No, flames don't shoot out the holes (there's a joke in there, I know it)... With the burner element used, it's very controller, unless you really crank up the gas feed and F-up the air/gas mix.

Which element are you using?

which burner element? I have the big banjo with an actual adj welding regulator with the dual gauges. I can run some 1/2 key stock in like 1" lengths around my flywheel leaving gaps between and set the pot on it and do a test run with some water this weekend. I thought it did well the way it was. it's my first brew. so.. it's all new to me thus far. but if it gets to a boil even faster then I'm all good for that! thanks