About to buy 3 bg-14 burners, anyone say no?

I am building a single-tier 3 vessel system, and I think I have decided on the high pressure BG-14 burners from agrisupply. I have searched the forum and read some decent reviews, so I was going to order them today. Anyone suggest otherwise? I'm basically finished with welding up the frame, and I am anxious to get the burners and gas lines built. It's pretty neat. I took an old gate off of the farm I live on and cut it down to make the frame. I'll post a build thread when I upgrade my account so I can post pictures! As always, thanks for all the very helpful advice that this forum delivers!

If I were building it, I would use two of the BG-14 burners for the BK and the HLT, but I would use this one for the MT:

http://www.agrisupply.com/burner-cast-low-presure-multi-hole-/p/40282/cn/5400000/

with this regulator:

http://www.agrisupply.com/product.asp?pn=64640

or use that same 6" burner for all three. I would also use a separate regulator for each burner. Use one high pressure regulator for to supply the gas rail or main line pipe and tee off the adjustable regulators from that. This will give you the best flame control and adjusting one burner will not affect the others. Not saying your plan will not work, but this is just the way I would do it. The BG-14 for the MT if you are direct firing, which it appears that you are, will likely provide too much heat even at a very low setting.

Cat,
Thanks for the advice. So with this plan, I would need 3 high pressure regulators and one low pressure one correct? Which high pressure regulator would you recommend? I am assuming if I had the three regulators to each burner I wouldn't need needle valves or is that incorrect? This is my first build so all this help is greatly appreciated! Also I'll be direct firing the mash tun and batch sparging for now with one pump.

Not quite. The regulator I linked is an adjustable pressure regulator. It adjusts from 0-10 psi. The beauty of this regulator is that it requires no separate needle valve. Instead of controlling the flow rate with a needle valve, you simply dial in the pressure with the red knob on the regulator itself. This is the regulator most often seen on the SQ-14 Bayou Classic burners (which use essentially the same 6" ring burner that I also linked above). Now then, you will want to use a high pressure orifice with these regulators. The regulators will each have one of these attached to the end of the supply hose. The problem is that the orifice is attached to the hose with some sort of a crimped connection. I'm not sure if you could cut these off and re-use them or not, but you can buy the orifices separately from Agrisupply. The ones you buy should have tapered pipe threads on both ends. They are not expensive at all. I guess you could use the regulators as they are, but I was kinda figuring you would want to hard pipe everything. I would be a little concerned about using the rubber gas supply hoses if they will be exposed to high heat such as the BG-14's are likely to produce. You don't want to melt a gas line for sure.

I would then use a non-adjustable high pressure regulator on the propane tank to feed the gas rail. I suppose you could use an adjustable regulator for this also, but I see no advantage in doing so. I don't think I have seen anyone use individual regulators for each burner as I have suggested, but I do think it would be the best way to go. One of my buddies has a Brutus clone using the multi-jet wok burners. He used only a single regulator on the tank and ball valves for flame control on the burners. That's where I noticed that adjusting one burner will affect the others. Not good IMO. It's workable with enough fooling around, but certainly not the way I would set it up. I don't like using ball valves for any kind of flow control whether gas or liquid. I prefer needle valves for gas and gate valves for liquids. Much better control. As I mentioned though, with the adjustable regulators, you won't need to use needle valves as the pressure adjustment is very controllable. If you go with my recommendations, please post back and let us know how it works out. I'm confident that you will like this configuration a lot.

So you are essentially saying hard pipe the regulators in and not use the hose that comes with the regulator? I need to study up a bit more on the plumbing of the regulators. also need to study up on orifices and the like. I've read hard piping is difficult to do if you want to adjust burner heigth. I was planning on using black pipe from home depot like so many people use.

Yes, most of the rigs I've seen have the burners hard piped, but some have used the flexible metal gas lines, so that would be another way to go if you want to be able to adjust the burner height, although I don't think you will find it necessary to do so. I would probably use the flexible metal gas line if I were doing it.

here's a link to some SS flexible gas line: http://www.plumbingsupply.com/gasconnectors.html

You could also use the same type of gas line that Home Depot etc sells for gas dryers and stoves. You'd probably be OK using the rubber gas line if you could protect it sufficiently from the heat. Which ever way you plumb the gas, the orifice must be attached directly to the burner.

Catt22,

I really appreciate your responses. Thanks for your time. I am just trying to figure this out so that when I order from Agrisupply I get all that I need. If I use the SS Flexible line, and I use 1/2 black pipe from home depot, I assume that I want 1/2 SS flexible line? Also, if I use 1/2 inch tees off the black pipe, do I screw the black part on the regulator onto the 1/2 black pipe and then use the SS line from the regulator to the orifice on the burner? All of those connections make me worried. I know these are probably stupid questions, but seeing as how this is my first attempt I just want to be sure I'm doing everything correctly. Also, the smaller 6" burner is low pressure or high pressure? If its low pressure then I assume I need a low pressure orifice for it, but a high pressure orifice for the other two bg-14 burners. Also, with using individual 0-10 psi regulators for each burner be enough regulator for the high pressure bg-14 burners? Sorry for all of the questions and thanks for the responses!

No problem at all.

1. The gas supply line can be much smaller than 1/2". Most of the regulators are equipped with only 1/4" ID hose. The main line (gas rail or pipe) should probably be 3/8 or 1/2", but anything tee'd off of it only needs to be 1/4". I'm not a gas line engineer, so I'm going by what I've observed and not actual calculations of any kind. These are relatively short runs, so the losses will not amount to much. It would be different if you were running the line 100 ft. You can push a lot of propane through a 1/4" pipe. Remember, the orifice is really tiny and all the gas must pass through that before it burns. The gas is moving pretty slowly through the pipes when the burner is operating.

2. You will want to remove both the big black connector and the rubber hose from your regulator. These have 1/4" tapered threads. This will leave you with the bare regulator which will have 1/4" female pipe threads on each side. The regulators are directional. IOW, the gas must flow in a particular direction. Usually the ports are marked "In" and "out" or at at least one of them will be. Sometimes they just have an arrrow indicating the direction of flow. So, then it's simply a matter of buying the proper reducers/adapters to hook them up to the pipe etc. The flexible gas lines usually come with flare connectors, but you can easily find adapters to get you to pipe thread. Often the flex lines will come with several common adapters. The one I bought for my dryer did.

3. The smaller 6" ring burner can be used as either a high or low pressure burner, but you must use the correct orifice with it. Use a high pressure orifice if you use the adjustable regulator.

4. You can use the high pressure orifice on all three burners if you use the adjustable regulators on all. The 0-10 psi regulator should be more than adequate to run the BG-14's.

5. You will still need to get from the propane tank to the piping or gas rail on the stand. The tank will require the big black (or sometimes green) connector. You can probably use one that you take off of one of the adjustable regulators. I would use a ball valve on the gas rail where you connect the hose from the tank. This will let you switch tanks without having to re-pressurize/purge the gas rail. You don't want to have an orifice on the supply line to the gas rail or pipe. The only orifice's (orifii ?) should be connected directly to the burner at the air damper. The purpose of the orifice is to increase the velocity of the gas moving into the burner (venturi effect) which draws in combustion air through the air damper. This is why different sized orifii are required for low and high pressure.

I mentioned earlier that the orifice is crimped onto the end of the rubber gas supply hose on my adjustable regulator. I have never cut one off to see what is under the crimped end. You might be able to use these if they are threaded on both ends. Someday I want to cut one off and see what's in there.

Can you post what you wound up with for your rig? I am in the process of finalizing my Brewtus 10 clone and went with three Bayou Classic BG14 burners. I used ASCO solenoid valves for direct fired setup and have only one 20PSI non adjustable regulator from my propane tank to my gas rail. I used ball valve shut-offs for each burner and the HLT and MT burners are controlled by ball valves from a tee with ball valves for the pilot flames. Pretty much followed Lonnie's plans that I bought. When I have either the HLT or MT burners ignited (from the pilot flame as controlled by my love controllers) I can't seem to get flames all ofthe way around the entire burner. I was thinking that maybe I didn't have enough pressure to supply enough gas to the burners?? I see that it looks like you only used 10PSI for your main regulator from the tank to gas rail? Now, here is the most surprising thing, my BK burner works fine flame is great, all of the way around and consistant even without having to open up ball vale all of the way. I can post pictures of my setup as well. Any help would really be appreciated!!

IMO, the BG14 banjo burner demands are exceeding the capacity of your regulator. If I were building this, I would find a way to supply the gas rail directly from the tank and use individual regulators for each burner. Alternately, you might be able to buy a higher capacity regulator to replace the one you are using and leave everything else the same. I'm not familiar with the pressure requirements/limitations for the ASCO valves, but that should be taken into consideration for sure when deciding where to place them relative to the regulator(s). With a single regulator I'm wondering if making adjustments to one burner when all three are running would affect the others. IOW, would it be a constant juggling act to get them all adjusted to where you want. Just some things to consider as I have little actual experience with a set up like yours, so keep that in mind.

Thanks for the quick reply! I'll look into a higher pressure regulator for the supply to the gas rail and try that. Then I am thinking that I'll put individual regulators to each burner if needbe. Do you think I'll need a regulator for the BK if it is full on anyway?

Probably not, but I'm not at all certain of that. The regulators are fairly inexpensive, so if I were doing it, I'd use individual regulators on all three burners.

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badhabit said:

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It's two years old

evandena said:

It's two years old

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lol, and still, i'm in the same position. I'll order my 3 burners today and 4 regulators.

LOL 2 zombies in Two days


bg 14's are nice for brew kettle and for MT HLT c an be the 6".


one regulator at the tank and then separate regs at the line before the burner are recommended to adjust the flow without restricting the other burners.

I would not buy three bg-14's. After using my brewhouse for over a year now, I've found that the burner on the MT is just too much. Really don't need that much heat once you mash in. I would use a much smaller burner. The only good point about having the large burner on the MT is solely for heating the water before mashing. On brew day, I measure out water needed for mashing and put that directly into the MT and put sparge water into HLT. I only do that because it's what I have. If I were to do it over again, I wouldn't worry about that and put a large burner on HLT and BK and put a small burner on the MT. Hope this helps!!

Cheers,
tg

Glad to see this thread revived! Haha. Been a while since I posted this. Guess I didn't document my build very well! I went with 2 bg-14s and the smaller 6 inch burner in the mash tun. I've brewed lots if great beers on my single tier but as with this hobby, I'm now upgrading already. Going with an electric two vessel system. Just want a more simplistic system.

Catt22 said:

If I were building it, I would use two of the BG-14 burners for the BK and the HLT, but I would use this one for the MT:

with this regulator:

http://www.agrisupply.com/product.asp?pn=64640

Click to expand...

The description for this regulator on Agri-supply does not list its range, but a similar one on their website says it goes from 0-5psi. Seems like it would need to go up to 10psi to be useful. Have you used this regulator? Does it really go up to 10psi as you posted later further down in the thread?