Natural Gas Burner and Stand does it exist?

It feels a little like beating a dead horse after reading through all of the treads on here but here goes. I have moved into a house that has a gas line right where I am putting my brew setup. I am trying to move out of the kitchen off of the stove and want to go with a natural gas burner to not deal with propane tanks. With that in mind I am looking for a premade stand and burner that is designed to work with NG and will be able to hold a Keggle. I have found the Stock Pot Range
http://www.standardrestaurant.com/ecom/app/stockDetail.action?stockNo=229728 for around $350. I know I can build something cheaper but before I try to jury rig something together I wanted to see if you guys had any better luck finding the above mentioned. I will have a large hood in the area for ventilation and will have a professional come extend the lines for me. Just looking to see if there are any other options. Also I dont have room in my breaker box for another 220 outlet or I would consider electric. Thanks in advance for the help.

BBS

Assuming you're rigging this inside...

What is the BTU output on that baby? If its over 90k that's not a bad option. I believe most of the outdoor cookers can be converted to NG, but they are "outdoor cookers." Potentially you could use a blichman burner or a banjo burner - but they wouldn't be as contained (read: safe) as what you posted.

Your other option is a brew stand, but most of those are three burner and well over 2k.

Whatever you do, make sure your plumber signs off that it is up to code, as does the HVAC guy who puts in your hood. Also invest in a few high quality CO detectors!

In short, looks great - very jealous!

Its right at 90k btu. Which i believe is enough to do a 20 gal so a 10 gal should be fine. Someone correct me if i'm wrong. Thanks for the response brewguyver.

BluBruShack said:

Its right at 90k btu. Which i believe is enough to do a 20 gal so a 10 gal should be fine. Someone correct me if i'm wrong. Thanks for the response brewguyver.

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Yep - right on target. Thanks for the link to that thing! I may consider one for my house (I have gas lines everywhere )

Out of curiosity, have you considered getting 3 and doing a single tier system? Not to put ideas in your head, but you should leave room for expansion - 3 of those covers the majority of your build ... you'd just be missing pots and pumps!

Yea - I'm getting carried away .

90,000 is about right for that style of burner. (had two in a restaurant)

Before investing in it call your gas supplier to see if it will work with your current supply line/meter.
Depending on the length of piping needed you may need a higher pressure gas regulator and or a larger gas meter to get the pressure right at the burner.

When I had a generator system installed I had to get a larger meter that would not shut down (safety feature) when the generator demanded gas.

OMO

I wouldn't JURY RIG anything to do with natural gas.

bosco

bosco

brewguyver - I would love to have a single tier with a few of those and and pumps but I think the mrs would kill me for dropping a grand on just burners. I was thinking about doing a hybrid system with a temp controlled electric mash tun (110v) then the gas boil pot. Still have not figured out what I would do for sparge water. And if your gonna dream might as well dream big. I have 3 keggles that would cover the pots aspect of things just pumps with i just found greatbreweh.com for 60$ pumps with a 1 year warranty. Seems a bit more reasonable than than the $100 march 809's

boscobeans - Also great advice ill give them a call and see if they know. The house is rigged up with 2 gas furnaces and a gas range so I would hope that I have the large one but who knows.

Thanks again both of you for the replies.

BBS

BluBruShack said:

boscobeans - Also great advice ill give them a call and see if they know. The house is rigged up with 2 gas furnaces and a gas range so I would hope that I have the large one but who knows.

Thanks again both of you for the replies.

BBS

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I had to have larger gas pipe installed when my house was built.
1 gas furnace
3 gas fireplaces
2 gas water heaters
1 commercial gas range
100,000 BTU pool heater.

When I had the generator system installed I was told that I needed a bigger meter to prevent the safety shut off from closing down the flow into the house.

It was no big deal but it would be just an extra ounce of caution before getting your sysytem up and running.

bosco

I am not sure how elaborate of a stand you are looking for, but I have the Blichmann Top Tier Floor Burner with the Extended Legs. The burner itself is really quite sturdy. The nice thing about this is that it comes setup for propane, but it can be quickly changed to natural gas by changing the orifice. This is what Northern Brewer has.

You might find this helpful.

Mark

You can buy a NG burner for about $25 and switch out the burner in a regular turkey cooker stand.

Lui: That Blichmann actually looks like a nice burner for about $180 Less. I see that it burns at 72,000btu. Do you know if that will boil a 10 gallon batch by chance? Also looking at the holders for the pot on the stand and I was wondering if those would hold a keggle or if I would need to build a stand. Just curious if anyone out there would know.

Monster: That is a good idea but wouldn't I need a different regulator for the NG to control the flow vs the propane?

BluBruShack said:

Lui: That Blichmann actually looks like a nice burner for about $180 Less. I see that it burns at 72,000btu. Do you know if that will boil a 10 gallon batch by chance? Also looking at the holders for the pot on the stand and I was wondering if those would hold a keggle or if I would need to build a stand. Just curious if anyone out there would know.

Monster: That is a good idea but wouldn't I need a different regulator for the NG to control the flow vs the propane?

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Check out the Blichmann Engineering site. They have some graphs and other info on the burner. Also you will be glad to know that the burner will hold keg glee and it will heat ten gallon batches batches. The only thing is that the 72 K BTUs is for propane. NG will be less, I believe. Mark

Check with blichmann and your local plumber or gas fitter but I believe that the blichmann burner runs in 11" wc propane out of the box so a regulator is only necessary if using a propane bottle. House propane or natura gas is already regulated to the appropriate pressure. You'll want a gas fitter to install a gas convenience outlet which you plug a hose into and has positive shut off safety features. Also this burner is not approved for use indoors not sure it you are talking about an indoor or outdoor brewery if indoor there are a lot of safety concerns that you will need to account for and you'll probably need something like what you posted originally.

There are not a lot of BTUs in a 40 gallon electric water heater but disabling safety's and capping the relief valve those little BTUs (230 volts 30 Amps is 6900 watts 3.14 BTUs per watt is less than 25,000 BTUs) can cause the 40 gallons to get to boiling temps, huge pressure and shoot the water heater through the roof of a house like a rocket when the tank fails and the water flashes to steam. So I'll be you could boil 30 gallon comfortably on 72,000 BTUs though it would obviously take longer to heat than 10 gallons.

BluBruShack said:

Lui: That Blichmann actually looks like a nice burner for about $180 Less. I see that it burns at 72,000btu. Do you know if that will boil a 10 gallon batch by chance?

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I believe the blichman uses the same burner as the banjo. I've seen the banjo rated up to 210k BTUs. Supposedly blichman tuned theirs to use gas more efficiently, and the big heat shield allows it to do more with less output.

Your gas contractor can tell you if it's ok to use something indoors. None of the homebrew vendors rate their gas setups for indoor use. It is not worth the extra liability or govt. scrutiny.

It's more an issue of ventilation and safety than govt scrutiny. Burning anything makes carbon monoxide. 72,000 BTUs is enough BTUs to heat most homes on a 0 degree day. The appliance that do that have engineered venting systems (chimneys or decidated blower based vent systems) in many cases there even needs to be engineered make up air systems. At this size you are talking about needing massive amounts of air flow to make it safe indoors. What's more is that CO detectors do not alarm until you have an imminently life threatening situation you could be exposed to co levels that will make you sick indefinitely with no alarm, what's even more is the failure rate of co sensors in UL approved detectors is really really high so you could even expose yourself to life threatening levels without knowing it. If you intend to brew indoors with gas you should have the space designed as if it were a commercial kitchen because that is the most similar application.

I think I am going to go with the Blichmann floor Burner. I found the specs for the burner and it looks just about perfect.

http://www.blichmannengineering.com/brew_stand/Manuals/TopTier Floor Burner Owners Manual-V3.pdf

This is what I found from Blichmann Eng. that has all the data I need and more. I have a commercial grade hood and fan That I was planning on boiling under. Have a CO detector but if everything else fails Ill just boil outside. Thank you all again for your input and helping to point me in the right direction.