Gas burner hardly putting out a flame

I just hooked up my gas manifold for the first time this year and fired up the brewstand. My burners are getting hardly any pressure from the propane tank. It's not the tank as I have tried two, one of them brand new. It's able to get the temperatures up to mash temp - I'm a little worried about how long it'll take to get to boiling - any ideas on what could be wrong?

I don't think there's a leak as I'm not smelling any propane and this sucker has been running for about an hour.

Safety valve kicked in.
Regulator clogged or moisture.
Burners clogged - spider webs, etc.

That's assuming from your post that last year they worked fine.

Safety Valve - let's talk about that - how do I fix that? Same with Reg. Clogged/Moisure

I played around w/ my inline regulator and all of a sudden boom - it finally fired up. That flame lasted only about 10 minutes before coming back to the small flame I've had for the past hour or so...

I will be labeled an alarmist but I wouldn't mess around with the internals on the regulator. I would just buy another one.

You might have tripped the excess flow device in the tank adapter, close burner valve, crack tank valve open and wait 30 secondes for pressure to build in downstream side then open tank valve the rest of the way. If the tank is low then pressure will drop after running the burners at high level as liquid propane in the tank gets cold from trying to absorb enough heat to turn to gas through a small surface area of the tank.

You mentioned a gas manifold and to me that implies a gas rail or something similar. The safety surge valve that kladue mentioned above may have tripped as the gas rushed from the tank to fill the relatively large volume of the manifold/rail. So, the usual fix is to close the tank valve first. Then open the control valve(s) to the burners in order to relieve the pressure in the gas line and the manifold. Next, close the burner control valve(s) and crack the tank valve open slightly. Wait for the manifold/gas rail to fill. This may take 30 seconds or so, but usually less than that. Now you can open the tank valve fully then open the control valve and light the burner(s). The trick is to slowly fill the manifold/gas rail to avoid tripping the surge valve on the tank connector. The safety surge valve is designed to greatly reduce the gas flow should the gas line be severed for some reason. Not all regulators/connectors have this device, but most do.

This used to happen to me quite often. turn off the tank, open the regulator and all valves, then disconnect the regulator to relieve the pressure between the tank and regulator. Reconnect everything and close the valve on the regulator. Then open the burner valve, then the tank valve and finally slowly open the regulator. I found what I was doing wrong was leaving the regulator open when I attached it to the tank and then opening the tank to light the burner (I only have one burner.)

dantodd said:

This used to happen to me quite often. turn off the tank, open the regulator and all valves, then disconnect the regulator to relieve the pressure between the tank and regulator. Reconnect everything and close the valve on the regulator. Then open the burner valve, then the tank valve and finally slowly open the regulator. I found what I was doing wrong was leaving the regulator open when I attached it to the tank and then opening the tank to light the burner (I only have one burner.)

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I think this is what was going on! Thank you sir! Finished the brewday yesterday flawlessly!