Burner Issues

I posted a thread similair to this a couple months back in the DIY section but didnt get much feed back. I'm still having issues with this so I wanted to see if anybody has any more thoughts.

My all grain stand uses 3 10" Banjo Low Pressure burners purchased from Brewers Hardware. I also have 12" heat shields, 3 propane orifices, and an 11" WC propane regulator. You can see everything on this page: Brewers_Hardware

No matter what I do I can not get a good flame off of this burner. It starts off nice and blue but after about 15 minutes or so, the flame turns bright orange, licks up the sides of my pot, and puts black soot on everything. As my palate for off flavors improves I'm starting to notice what I think to be DMS. My boils have always been more of a simmer (11 gallon batches).

I have the vent on the burner open as wide as it can go. I've tried lowering the burner, raising the burner, less propane, more propane, everything I can think of yet nothing gets me that nice blue, high intensity flame I am looking for.

I never run more than 2 burners at a time. But even with 1 burner running I cant get a nice flame.

I am looking for any and all suggestions, stories, similarites, that could help me fix this.

Thanks for any and all input!

Interesting that it starts out good and then goes bad.


Have you tried another regulator? Tried another tank?

Can you run two burners at once? If so, do they both go bad at the same time?

What happens if you wait to fire a second burner after the first is bad?


Could your heat shielding be overheating the valve/orifice end of things?

reynolds5520 said:

Interesting that it starts out good and then goes bad.

Have you tried another regulator? Tried another tank?

Can you run two burners at once? If so, do they both go bad at the same time?

What happens if you wait to fire a second burner after the first is bad?

Could your heat shielding be overheating the valve/orifice end of things?

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Haven't tried another regulator. I was thinking if getting an adjustable one but everything I'm reading says the orange flame is indicative of too much fuel. Considering I'm using a low pressure regulator my thoughts were that anything higher would cause an even bigger problem.

I have tried multiple tanks.

I can run 2 at once but have never really done it for a lengthy time period. I could try and see what happens.

The orifice is outside of the heat shield a good bit so I don't think it would be damaging the orifice.

mrrshotshot said:

Haven't tried another regulator. I was thinking if getting an adjustable one but everything I'm reading says the orange flame is indicative of too much fuel. Considering I'm using a low pressure regulator my thoughts were that anything higher would cause an even bigger problem.

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Trying another one or switching to an adjustable wouldn't be to get more fuel, but rather to eliminate the current one as a source of the problem. It may be allowing the pressure to creep up.

mrrshotshot said:

I have tried multiple tanks.

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OK, rules that out.

mrrshotshot said:

I can run 2 at once but have never really done it for a lengthy time period. I could try and see what happens.

Click to expand...

If both start out good, and then go bad at the same time, that would suggest a regulator issue since it is common to both.

mrrshotshot said:

The orifice is outside of the heat shield a good bit so I don't think it would be damaging the orifice.

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I wasn't thinking in terms of damage, but rather of heat effecting the gas through the orifice. Hot gas vs cool gas into the burner.

What about hot exhaust into the air intake? Any mixing going on there?

reynolds5520 said:

If both start out good, and then go bad at the same time, that would suggest a regulator issue since it is common to both.

Click to expand...

If you wait for one to go bad, and then the other starts good, that would suggest a heat related issue.

Here's a link to the other thread. It has a few pictures of what my burner setup looks like: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/need-more-air-my-burner-372474/

As you can see, the shields have a 2 inch flap to allow exhaust gasses to escape. The escape flap is on the other side of the gas in so I don't think I'm getting exhaust into the burner.

I'll try the burner experiment you suggested to see if the regulator could possibly be the culprit.

The old thread states that the other burners are fine but that is no longer the case. They too become yellow over time.

And if someone could explain tis to me that'd be great: How come I have seen this burner advertised as both low and high pressure? Are there 2 different types of 10" Banjo burners? For example, midewest supplies suggests THIS 30 PSI regulator for the 10" Banjo, yet brewers hardware suggests THIS 11" WC regulator (0.4 PSI) for the 10" Banjo burner. Is there something I'm missing?

The same burner can be used with high or low pressure. When using it with low pressure, you need the correct orifice that has a larger hole. The orifice also changes with LP vs natural gas.

Just looked at your pictures, I remember the previous thread now.



Next question, does this happen without a kettle over the burner? Or only with a kettle in place?

reynolds5520 said:

Just looked at your pictures, I remember the previous thread now.

Next question, does this happen without a kettle over the burner? Or only with a kettle in place?

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From what I remember the yellow went away with the kettle removed buy I never left it off for any length of time to see if it returned. Looks like I have a second experiment to do.

Somebody in the other thread suggested adding spacers under the kettles. I thought the shield type you used, with the exhaust out the back, would eliminate the need for spacers. I would try spacers anyway, see what happens.

reynolds5520 said:

Somebody in the other thread suggested adding spacers under the kettles. I thought the shield type you used, with the exhaust out the back, would eliminate the need for spacers. I would try spacers anyway, see what happens.

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We didn't try spacers but we did lower the burner using some brackets. It helped but not much. I can try spacers as well.

Hey, I did HVAC for 15ish years. Something about the 11" WC propane regulator is wrong. I'd get a 10psi-30psi reg and check again. I'd also check the orface is correct for LP. Can you show a picture of the burners and how they are piped?

mikescooling said:

Hey, I did HVAC for 15ish years. Something about the 11" WC propane regulator is wrong. I'd get a 10psi-30psi reg and check again. I'd also check the orface is correct for LP. Can you show a picture of the burners and how they are piped?

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Are you saying using the 11" WC is wrong, or it has a defect? I ordered the same setup last week, and waiting for USPS to deliver it.

mikescooling said:

Hey, I did HVAC for 15ish years. Something about the 11" WC propane regulator is wrong. I'd get a 10psi-30psi reg and check again. I'd also check the orface is correct for LP. Can you show a picture of the burners and how they are piped?

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The orifices are for LP (see link in earlier thread). Here's a picture of my entire stand.



The black iron pipe is 1/2"

mikescooling said:

Hey, I did HVAC for 15ish years. Something about the 11" WC propane regulator is wrong. I'd get a 10psi-30psi reg and check again. I'd also check the orface is correct for LP. Can you show a picture of the burners and how they are piped?

Click to expand...

If I got a 10-30 regulator, wouldn't I also have to buy all new high pressure orifices?

SOOO, you should have the first reg that lets LP out of the tank at 30psi, then you need a second valve to turn the gas up or down, then after that it enters the orface. 3 things control your LP and here is a chart that talks about LP pipe sizing based on 10psig, 11WC is 1/3 of a 1 psi, Most brewers are using 30psi. Do you know any heating guy's? It may be best to get someone with the tools to get things going. On the up side your not far from getting this finished It just needs some tweeks and possibaly a new regulator.
http://home.mchsi.com/~gweidner/pipe-sizing-charts-lp.pdf
LP orfaces are all the same'ish, but it cant be a NG orfaces

They may also intend for this regulator to only go to one burner 3 feet away, not feed 3 burners via pipe and fittngs. I'd call them and ask them?

mikescooling said:

SOOO, you should have the first reg that lets LP out of the tank at 30psi, then you need a second valve to turn the gas up or down, then after that it enters the orface. 3 things control your LP and here is a chart that talks about LP pipe sizing based on 10psig, 11WC is 1/3 of a 1 psi, Most brewers are using 30psi. Do you know any heating guy's? It may be best to get someone with the tools to get things going. On the up side your not far from getting this finished It just needs some tweeks and possibaly a new regulator.
http://home.mchsi.com/~gweidner/pipe-sizing-charts-lp.pdf
LP orfaces are all the same'ish, but it cant be a NG orfaces

Click to expand...

So I need to get a regulator for my regulator? First time I've ever heard of that.

mikescooling said:

They may also intend for this regulator to only go to one burner 3 feet away, not feed 3 burners via pipe and fittngs. I'd call them and ask them?

Click to expand...

I emailed them on Friday. Hopefully get a response this week.

mrrshotshot said:

We didn't try spacers but we did lower the burner using some brackets. It helped but not much. I can try spacers as well.

Click to expand...

The kettles cover so much of the frame that almost all of the exhaust has to go out the back. Lowering the burner doesn't change that very much. Adding a few 1/2 inch spacers between the kettle and frame would also allow exhaust to exit around the sides of the kettle. a few chunks of scrap are all you need to test this.

Other than pressure, whats the difference between High Pressure and Low Pressure. Does high pressure use (waste) more propane?

I've found these valve/orifices online and thought maybe itd be a good experiment (albeit a costly one) to try a 30 PSI regulator with one of these needle valves and see if I get better results (after trying the other suggestions first).

^ The difference is purely the maximum available output. I run high pressure banjos (without any issues, fwiw) but my flame height is likely the same as someone else using the same BG-14 when running on natural gas, and heating the same batch size...

Cheers!

True, you can get more gas through the pipe with high pressure. The reason folks use low pressure is that it is easy to convert to automation later. Controllable gas valves of the type used in furnaces use low pressure.

reynolds5520 said:

True, you can get more gas through the pipe with high pressure. The reason folks use low pressure is that it is easy to convert to automation later. Controllable gas valves of the type used in furnaces use low pressure.

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Oh, I see. Lucky for me thats not something I ever want to do. Brewings more fun when I'M the one brewing, not some computer haha (no offense to those that use that stuff, to each their own).

So what happened?

mikescooling said:

So what happened?

Click to expand...

Haven't messed with it. Just got home from vacation. Gonna start playin around with it tomorrow

mrrshotshot said:

And if someone could explain tis to me that'd be great: How come I have seen this burner advertised as both low and high pressure? Are there 2 different types of 10" Banjo burners? For example, midewest supplies suggests THIS 30 PSI regulator for the 10" Banjo, yet brewers hardware suggests THIS 11" WC regulator (0.4 PSI) for the 10" Banjo burner. Is there something I'm missing?

Click to expand...

one "may" for propane and the "other " for natural gas

So it took awhile but I finally got around to some experimenting.

I swapped out my 11" WC regulator for a 10 psi one. I also replaced the low pressure ball valve orifices with high pressure needle valve orifices as shown below:



This combination seems to work much better. My flame stays nice and blue and doesn't lick up the back of my kettles leaving them sooty and dirty.

I did have the flame go out twice on me on Saturday during brewing. Couldn't tell it was out until I started smelling propane. That could get a little dangerous.

I still wasn't able to get a nice vigorous rolling boil so I'm considering getting a 0-20 psi adjustable regulator to see if I can't get the flame a little bigger. I may also try moving the burners up closer to the kettle.

Thanks for all of your suggestions and if you have anymore feel free to share.

Anybody got an idea why my flame just flat went out? It wasn't windy outside when I was brewing...