What burner to buy?

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thebull

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I'm moving to all grain brewing soon and I want Santa Clause to bring a new burner that will handle ten gallon boils. I borrowed a King Kooker 110,000 BTU unit yesterday to boil a five gallon extract Fat Tire. The cooker made to much noise and was a little hard to regulate. No question it will cook.

My question: Will a 35,000 BTU low pressure burner support a ten gallon sparge and boil? This burner seems to be in my price range, but may be low on BTU's.
 
A standard cast iron "turkey burner" runs 55,000 BTU. They don't get much cheaper.
 
All of the standard cast iron turkey burners I've seen (or heard) tend to be loud. If the noise is a factor for you, there are some quieter ones on this page from Norther Brewer. Of course, they are available from a wide variety of sellers, so you might want to shop around. If you have natural gas, a low pressure jet-style burner is the way to go. I don't know how low-pressure propane works.
 
The cheapest burners have a single jet (like a bunsen burner). They make a lot of noise, and burn a lot of propane. Slighly more expensive are burners with multiple jets like those shown in the previous links. They are quieter, and don't use as much propane.
I get about 7 - 8 brews out of a tank from my King Cooker, as opposed to about 4 brews from my old single jet burner.
Either should provide enough heat for a 10 gallon boil. As beer4breakfast said, it's definately worth shopping around as the prices vary a lot.

-a.
 
You can't get much quieter than a Banjo Burner and they come in a lot of different btu sizes. Shop around I have a kick a banjo burner KA5 and I can regulate it from almost nothing to 210,000 btu's but at the highest range It absolutly SUCKS propane like a monster!!!!!!! but even running at high it is fairly quiet!!!
 
I use a standard turkey fryer I got from sears for $40, It is loud but I have brewed at least 5 batches and have only used a half a tank of propane. It takes me about 15-20min to get the wart to a full boil.
 
I have settled on the Banjo and want to order quickly while Amazon is offering free shipping, however, I can't decide on the 55,000 or the 210,000 BTU. Cheep skate or over-kill? David and others, will the 55,000 BTU handle ten gallon boils and the prep of them or would the 210,000 BTU unit be best? Thanks for all the info.
 
Get the 210k, you only live once!

Did you read the other thread? You can make flames go all the way up the sides of the keg! C'mon, BURN, BABY, BURN!

Oh, and for 10 gallons, I'd get as big a burner as I could. It sounds nice and stable as well.
 
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