if your cheap like me at least 12 5 gallon batches. I heat my mash water on the stove, as soon as I mash in I start my sparge water on the stove than I use the propane burner for my 60 minute boil. Also helps to brew in the garage out of the wind.
How do you know it's cheaper to heat your mash and sparge on the stove? I couldn't see bringing 9 gallon of mash water and 8 gallon of sparge water on a stove.
This thread is reinforcing my thoughts to go all electric. I havn't purchased a propane burner yet, but am using heat sticks on the stove so far. Just need to outfit my 21 gallon VAT with a 5500watt burner. $4 or so for 5 gallons of brew...too much.
Electric is very nice to use, but expensive to set up and wouldn't pay for itself in energy savings for a long time. Propane, even at $5 a batch, is still much cheaper than the relative cost of ingredients- especially if hops were to go up in price again like they did in 08/09.
Electric is more like $1 a batch. Depending on how often one brews, the equipment costs can be recovered quite quickly.
Yeah, I do mostly 10 gal batches myself and have been wondering what it would take to splice a 1/4 in flex line off my gas meter area directly to my burner. With a shutoff valve at the meter. Would save me many Home Depot trips!
I would say between 2 and 4 depending....
Tanks are only 15lb now.
That's if you exchange them. If you take them to a place that will fill your existing tank, you should get the full 20 lbs.
EDIT - I didn't realize I was responding to an old post.
Our HVAC guy set me up with a NG setup when we got our new furnace. It's solid and will never leak, and comes off the line that goes to the hot water heater with a sturdy safety valve and heavy-duty brass disconnect specifically for NG, and 12' hoses going to the burners. I had two BG12 burners (only good for propane) that were fairly new and could not justify the cost of BG14s, also they're damned hard to find that will fit my brewstand. So I took apart the orifices on the BG12s and very carefully drilled them a bit bigger; I think the final bit I used was 7/64". Put them back together with lots of blue monster tape, and it works very well. I do get a bit of soot but nothing like I used to get with propane. Used to start every brewday worrying did I have enough propane, now my three tanks sit idle, and I can boil as long as I want to. Absolute best improvement I've made to my brewery, hands down.A decent plumber can do that for you in no time. I was actually thinking of switching to a natural gas burner since I have the line run to my grill already. I wish I could find a natural gas burner that isn't so pricey.
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