Natural Gas Burners - Which One Is Best?

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TRainH2o

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I tapped into my natural gas line for my grill but I also want to use natural gas for brewing. I have a LP gas turkey fryer but I want to make a burner and stand from scratch. My pot barely fits on my current burner, and there's no way my keggle will fit.

I have seen the Banjo type burners and the multi-jet type that have 23+ jets. Is one type better or easier to use than the other? The Banjo burners actually say they can't be modified for natural gas use, but I know people use them.

What do you folks think?
 
The banjo burner offers the widest range of clean burning flame adjustment of the burners out there, and conversion is as simple as swapping high pressure gas jet for NG valve from various sources. Output on NG is considerably less than high pressure LP but more than enough for 15 gallon or less systems.
 
I would look into natural gas jet burners.
Conversion of propane burners will give you a lot less heat output. However, if you get a natural gas jet burner, or a duck tail burner, you can easily get over 100k btu's from a home line.

100k btu
http://www.cpapc.com/23-Tip-Round-Nozzle-Jet-Burner-natural-gas-P469C244.aspx

160k btu
http://www.homebrewstuff.com/servlet/the-391/32-Tip-Natural-Gas/Detail

TRainH2o said:
The Banjo burners actually say they can't be modified for natural gas use, but I know people use them.

What do you folks think?
Click to expand...

I am currenly running a converted propane burner (not a banjo though.) They can be converted, all you need to do is drill out the orifice that delivers the output of fuel. Here is my method:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/converted-bayou-burner-propane-natural-gas-200251/

fixed url
 
I use 20 tip jet burners on my rig. I have a 3 tier rig and run 2 of them at the same time with no issues. I've read all kinds of complaints about the jet burners, but have had no problem with them. The only thing I would like better is more low temp control. The thing with the jet burners is they need to suck air to get the mix for the correct flame. At low levels they do not suck enough air to get efficent mix. You have to have the jet burners further from the bottom of the kettles in order to get them to work the best. This is somethign to think about. My HLT burner is 14" from the top of jet to kettle bottom. My BK burner is 12" from tip of jet to kettle bottom. This allows you better control and max performance from the burner. I plumbed from my NG meter with 3/4" pipe. I then have NG quick disconects and a 15' NG flexable gas hose. My rig is plumbed with 3/4" pipe and I just use 3/4" gas ball valves to control the flame. I have pix in my profile to see what I have. I bought the disconnects from tejassmokers.com and had the gas hose made local. Wasn't cheap, but works great. If I had it to do over, I would have bought the Banjo for more control. I think controling a mash would be hard with the jet burners. Klaude was right on with what he said. Banjo is best with clean flame control.
 
Dog House Brew - 12"-14" sure seems like a huge distance to be from the burner to the kettle. I'm using 10 tip burners and mine are probably less than 6" away.

Are you using burner shields? That may be stiffling the O2 feed and the reason you have to pull them further away.
 
JonW said:
Dog House Brew - 12"-14" sure seems like a huge distance to be from the burner to the kettle. I'm using 10 tip burners and mine are probably less than 6" away.

Are you using burner shields? That may be stiffling the O2 feed and the reason you have to pull them further away.
Click to expand...

I do have shields, but there is a lot of room around them. I set them so far away after reading that is the distance to get the maximum heat from the burner. You can see my set up in the gallery. I may have set them up wrong. They work, but think think a Banjo would have better control from what I've seen. My 20 tip heat water fast and bring 20 gallons to boil in no time. I was thinking speed when I set it up. Thought less about brewing function. LOL! :confused:
 
Dog House Brew said:
I do have shields, but there is a lot of room around them. I set them so far away after reading that is the distance to get the maximum heat from the burner. You can see my set up in the gallery. I may have set them up wrong. They work, but think think a Banjo would have better control from what I've seen. My 20 tip heat water fast and bring 20 gallons to boil in no time. I was thinking speed when I set it up. Thought less about brewing function. LOL! :confused:
Click to expand...

I just looked at the pics and it looks like you have them all boxed in. You need a good flow of O2 going into there. It looks like your only intake is from the bottom. That is likely why you need to have the burners so low. I would drill several large holes in the sides of hose heatshields that are 1.5-2" to get more air flowing in there.
 
Dog House Brew said:
I use 20 tip jet burners on my rig. I have a 3 tier rig and run 2 of them at the same time with no issues. I've read all kinds of complaints about the jet burners, but have had no problem with them. The only thing I would like better is more low temp control. The thing with the jet burners is they need to suck air to get the mix for the correct flame. At low levels they do not suck enough air to get efficent mix. You have to have the jet burners further from the bottom of the kettles in order to get them to work the best. This is somethign to think about. My HLT burner is 14" from the top of jet to kettle bottom. My BK burner is 12" from tip of jet to kettle bottom. This allows you better control and max performance from the burner. I plumbed from my NG meter with 3/4" pipe. I then have NG quick disconects and a 15' NG flexable gas hose. My rig is plumbed with 3/4" pipe and I just use 3/4" gas ball valves to control the flame. I have pix in my profile to see what I have. I bought the disconnects from tejassmokers.com and had the gas hose made local. Wasn't cheap, but works great. If I had it to do over, I would have bought the Banjo for more control. I think controling a mash would be hard with the jet burners. Klaude was right on with what he said. Banjo is best with clean flame control.
Click to expand...

I have the 23 tip jet burners and have been trying to figure out how to remedy the yellow flame issue. Looks like I need to raise my kettles a bit. Wish I would have know this before putting my B10 together. I found some needle valves that I put inline with my solenoid controllers and can turn down my flame to get a clean burn....but I lose power.

Cheers
 
HopHead24 said:
I have the 23 tip jet burners and have been trying to figure out how to remedy the yellow flame issue. Looks like I need to raise my kettles a bit. Wish I would have know this before putting my B10 together. I found some needle valves that I put inline with my solenoid controllers and can turn down my flame to get a clean burn....but I lose power.

Cheers
Click to expand...

No matter what I do I can't get get a good blue falme. I don't get any black suet, but I think it could be more efficient. When I get the way to get the mixture correct I will post it. I'm thinking of adding a small fan below the burner with a dimer switch to control the speed of the fan. There has to be a way to get these burners to work at low gas flow. Wide open this burner rocks, but how often to we need wide open.
 
I have the 23 tip burners also and I get a yellow flame no matter how high or low the flame is. I don't get any soot and I can get 28 gallons to a boil and keep a boil with a low flame.

DSCN1504.jpg
 
+1 for the Hurricane burner. I was able to discard my BBq side burner, and modify the hurricane stand to fit in the side burner cavity. works great, and a lot less cost than buying propane gas.
 

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