LP vs Natural Gas

Hi

My brew partner and I will soon be needing an additonal turkey fryer.

We brew outdoors, year round on a patio. My home is heated by natural gas and it enters the house near the patio. There used to be a natural gas line stubbed from the meter to a gas fired cooking grill. I can easily use that stub to attach a natural gas burner placed on our brewing structure.

Does anybody have any experience with this? What do I need to know to move forward on the project?

EDIT: The original post led the reader to believe that I was using gasoline in my house for heating. Opps.

I would use as much hard line as you can just to make the connection more rigid.
Obviously, there is limit to how much hard line you can use and still make the connection an easy disconnect type operation for a mobile sculpture but if it isn't going to move use as much hard line as possible.

You'll need an on off valve at the original connection at least but I would put one on the brew rig as well for convenience and emergency situations.

Get your self some pipe dope that is approved for natural gas connections and some test solution so you can test all connections for leaks prior to lighting the burner.

And be sure to keep us updated. I'm in the camp of using natural gas for home heating/cooking and would love to tap into that system instead of the propane tanks. However, I've been apprehensive as I generally glaze over when people start talking about gas pressure. Not only that but I'm not ready to trade in my current propane cooker for a natural gas version. Lets us know how it goes.

Figuring out if you'll have enough pressure for the BTU size of your burner is pretty tough. I plumbed a 1/2" pipe out to my garage a few years ago to run a 10Kbtu heater in there. It turned out that it wasn't enough heat for the size and being uninsulated. I then added a hose to run my large 100Kbtu burner for my keggle and found the pressure to be way too low. The major problem is that this single 1/2" is tapped off of another 1/2" line that already goes to my water heater. Well, 150kbtu competing for that pressure is just bad news. It burns OK when the water heater is not running, but I get some orange flame when it does.

I also have a line tapped off the main 1" trunk line going to my nat gas grill but that connection is 3/4". I ran the burner off that line and it was much better. Too bad that goes to the patio and not the garage.

In total, I've got a gas dryer, kitchen stove, hot air furnace and water heater all taking pressure off my trunk PRIOR to getting to the garage. If I really want to do this right, I'd probably have to upgrade my main line to 1.5".

To the OP, it's likely that the nat gas grill was something like 30kBTU so they probably only ran 3/8" pipe out there. If you can upgrade that stub to 1/2", it will work pretty well since you'd be tapping off really close to where your meter is. By the way, don't say gasoline ;-)

Gammon N Beer said:

Hi

and the gasoline enters the house near the patio.

Does anybody have any experience with this? What do I need to know to move forward on the project?

Click to expand...

Holy Smoke you'd better not have an open flame anywhere near the Gasoline!

Sorry couldn't resist.

I have a NG tankless water heater that burns about 120,000btus. A 3/4" gas line is required to support this if it is within 40ft of the meter. That grows up to 1 1/4" if you're traveling long distances. There is a chart on page 12 of the online manual. Check out this site, though it isn't exactly what you're talking about, it provides good reference on gas piping.
In my inquiry into the same, I've been given these links for burners by member WBC. Great prices!
145,000btu burner
200,000btu burner

Definitely keep posting if you go through with it!

I just put in a natural gas line to my back patio where I brew but I'm not running on it yet. I have to finish building my Brutus Ten clone first.

I put a one inch black pipe line tee'd off the main house supply line on my side of the gas company's meter in my backyard. It's about 18 inches underground right below the meter. It runs 12 feet to the corner of my patio, then up out of the ground and into a gutted electrical enclosure that I mounted on a column. I terminated it inside the box with a brass shutoff valve that steps it down to 1/2 inch. The electrical box is padlocked so no one can get to the valve. A two foot yellow flex line runs out of the box, and it will connect to my brew stand.

The brew stand will have 1/2 inch hard piping and three 150k BTU burners. I have 7 inches of water column at the gas meter. I may need to increase that to 12 to 14 inches, but I won't know until I try it. My appliances in the house can handle 14 inches max, but if I step it up at the meter I will probably install another regulator downstream before the gas goes into my house to step it down to 10 or so to be safe. The gas company says I can go to 2 PSI at the meter, which is 55.5 inches of water column. I'm sure I won't need that much pressure.

Here are the 8 inch 150k BTU burners I bought. I doubt I'll get 150k BTU out of them at 7 inches of water column, but I know of no way to determine that.

Gammon N Beer said:

I can easily use that stub to attach a natural gas burner placed on our brewing structure.

Does anybody have any experience with this? What do I need to know to move forward on the project?

Click to expand...

That is exactly what I use for my setup. I use a NG burner with 32 jets that is supposed to be good for 300,000 BTUs. It'll bring 20 gallons to a rolling boil in about 20 minutes. You just need a natural gas burner, a control valve (a simple ball valve rated for NG works), and some gas line to connect the whole thing.

Yuri_Rage said:

That is exactly what I use for my setup. I use a NG burner with 32 jets that is supposed to be good for 300,000 BTUs. It'll bring 20 gallons to a rolling boil in about 20 minutes. You just need a natural gas burner, a control valve (a simple ball valve rated for NG works), and some gas line to connect the whole thing.

Click to expand...

Yuri, I see on your original thread that you've used a 3/8" soft supply line. What size/length piping are you coming off of? Are you still using the 3/8" line?

The stub from the house is 3/4 NPT, but I've got the burner supply line necked down to 3/8". I bet I could get even more heat out of it if I ran bigger line, but I really don't need it.

not to burst the bubble or anything here but make sure you watch your codes, and also no teflon on gas lines> only dope...the terminations should be from bigger to smaller pipe...3/4-1/2, or 3/4 -1/2 X 1/2. cant go 1/2 - 1/2. and always a gas cock(shut off) before the burner. trust me itll bite ya if you get things inspected down the line. definatly put some bubbles on those joints to leak test em....just my 2 cents. ..

Watch your codes.
There will be no inspections until we sell the house, and the stub will be capped for that event. However...

No Teflon on gas lines, only dope.
Check.

The terminations should be from bigger to smaller pipe.
Check.

Always a gas cock (shut off) before the burner.
Check.

Put some bubbles on those joints to leak test 'em.
Check.

For those folks that want more Natural gas pressure for brewing ask the gas supplier for a high pressure meter set for a Natural gas fueled backup generator. Those sets are 2 psi over the 4" W.C. residential set, leave the residential set regulators at 4" unless you want to try for an entry in the darwin awards contest as the competively constructed gas valves and regulators on heating equipment and appliances might give you a nasty suprise.

i'd eventually like to move the brewery into the basement, and plumb NG for the burners. reading all this stuff just gives me more questions than answers. can anyone recommend a quality beginner resource, hopefully online but a book would be fine as well, that will explain the theory that you guys are discussing regarding figuring the pressure and using the proper size pipe, etc. also, what the heck does water column mean???

SenorWanderer said:

what the heck does water column mean???

Click to expand...

Can't help you on the resource guide, but I can tell you what "water column" means. To measure low pressures like that of natural gas in homes, PSI is not useful because the base units are too big to give accurate information. It's like trying to measure the thickness of a piece of paper with a ruler. Two pieces of paper appears to be the same thickness as one, even though it's twice as thick. I've actually never heard of a water column, but I have heard of "inches of water". So the pressure of natural gas is measured based on the pressure of water at varying depths. This allows for a finer resolution and therefore more specific information. According to onlineconversion.com 1 psi equals about 28 inches of water.

Here's some good info on that....

http://www.komar.org/faq/manometer/

Yuri_Rage said:

The stub from the house is 3/4 NPT, but I've got the burner supply line necked down to 3/8". I bet I could get even more heat out of it if I ran bigger line, but I really don't need it.

Click to expand...

How do you regulate the pressure to control the boil?

And the air mix?

Would you still recommend this burner? It looks like they've upgraded to 44 jets, still rated at 200k btus though.

You use a ball valve to control the flame. There is no air mix adjustment on those ring burners since the air intakes are in the base of each jet. You better have some BIG pipe off a main trunk to run that thing cleanly. I'd recommend no more than 30 feet of 3/4" pipe directly off a 1" or larger trunk.

Thanks, Bobby_M, I didn't realize the jets had their own ports. That's awesome!
I'm really leaning towards one of these jet burners!

A ball valve gives fair control over low pressure gas? I'd have thought a diaphragm regulator would be necessary.

I assume we are talking low pressure. I've not seen anything indicating that these burners are high pressure. Would a high pressure set up (like kladue had mentioned) be necessary?

Back to the original topic. Here's what I'm debating...

LP - portable, lower start up cost, available where NG is not, less likely to become a building codes issue.

NG - cheaper, never run out, never refill tanks.
anybody have any others?

The ball valve really isn't adjusting the pressure, it's adjusting the flow. It's like having a garden hose with the water either barely turned on, or a quarter of a twist more than that. The pressure at the end of the hose is the same, but the amount of water flowing in a minute may be quite different. To avoid the possibility of running out of propane, I have two dedicated brew tanks. The problem with having only one, is that if you think you may run out on brew day, you go to the local gas station and exchange it. You are giving away propane if the tank isn't empty. With two, I run it till it flames out. I can change it over in less than a minute, so even if i'm right in the middle of the boil, there's no problems.

5 Is Not Enough said:

Thanks, Bobby_M, I didn't realize the jets had their own ports. That's awesome!
I'm really leaning towards one of these jet burners!

A ball valve gives fair control over low pressure gas? I'd have thought a diaphragm regulator would be necessary.

I assume we are talking low pressure. I've not seen anything indicating that these burners are high pressure. Would a high pressure set up (like kladue had mentioned) be necessary?

Click to expand...

It says the burner is for natural gas only. By definition, that is low pressure. NG is fed to the gas meter usually at something like 2 to 5 PSI, which is already lower than the pressure that LP is regulated to from an LP tank. In residential areas it is mostly 2 PSI. Then the gas company has a regulator on their meter that drops it down to somewhere between 7 and 14 inches of water column (.25 to .5 PSI) going into your house. NG on your side of the meter is just not under high pressure like the gas in a propane tank, so there is no need for yet another regulator to reduce it even more before it gets to your burners. A ball valve gives you plenty of control.

A 14 inch diameter jet burner is enormous. People use these things for 120 quart crawfish pots. They use them for enormous jambalaya cookers that feed a couple hundred people. This is just my opinion, but unless you are doing 30 to 40 gallon boils, this is just too big. There are 150k BTU burners that are eight inches in diameter. They will work much better with a keggle, if that's what you are planning to use. A keg is only 16 inches diameter across the bottom, so a 14 inch diameter burner could have flames licking up the sides.

5 Is Not Enough said:

Back to the original topic. Here's what I'm debating...

LP - portable, lower start up cost, available where NG is not, less likely to become a building codes issue.

NG - cheaper, never run out, never refill tanks.
anybody have any others?

Click to expand...

If you have natural gas available, use it. It's cheaper than LP even when you have a 500 to 1000 gallon LP tank. It is MUCH cheaper than LP when you're using a cylinder exchange 20 gallon tank.

Now if you need to be portable, then go for propane, or have burners you can swap out easily. For a non-portable permanent stand at home where NG is an option, there is no advantage to LP. If you move somewhere that doesn't have NG, swap out your burners or rejet them for LP, put a 10 or 20 PSI regulator on it, and you're done.

The one caveat is that if you are going to use NG and you aren't comfortable doing the gas connections and piping yourself, you should hire it out to a plumber. It won't be cheap, but it will be safe, to code, and usually with a local municipality permit. Only if you are certain you know what you are doing should you do it yourself. Believe it or not, it ain't rocket science, but I DON'T mean to encourage anyone to do NG piping themselves if they're unsure.

I do agree that the 40+ ring burner is really to big for most applications and I'd even worry that you were stealing too much pressure from the rest of your gas appliances. If you really have an application that need 300+kBTU, you might want to get yourself a 100lb LP tank. For boiling 12 gallons in a keg, I have a 23 tip burner that I modified down to 15 tips. This allows me to have more high/low control on the flame while maintaining a good burn. You can't turn these burners down low because the lose in pressure to each tip causes crappy burn *(I'm pretty sure do to not pulling enough oxygen into the intakes).

I think these are very nice burners but they have a limited range of output. You have to determine your real BTU needs before choosing the size and you better have enough pressure/flow off your main line to make it work. As much as I dread it, I'm going to have to run a new line out to my garage that originates from the larger trunk near the meter.

For 5-10 gal batches, you can get away with a 10 tip burner. They're not easy to find but when you do, it's 40 bucks. You can get the 23 tip for about $19, then buy a box of M8-1.0 fine thread bolts to plug the tips to your own situation. Once you step up to 15 gallon+, the 32 tips is nice if you've got the gas.

The lack of portability means I'm hosting a lot more group brews than I normally would.

I want to thank everybody for the responses. When I began the thread because I really did not know a great deal about converting to natural gas. You have offered me and others a lot to consider.

Thanks