HELP! Plumbing Gas Questions

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McHandbag

McHandbag

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I'm in the process of building out my Brutus 10 knock-off, and i'm running into some issues with plumbing the system for propane.

I have two banjo burners for the HLT and Kettle and a smaller cast iron burner for Mash temp regulation.

My questions are as follows.
1. The small one has a 10psi regulator attached. If i want to run all three burners off the same tank, what psi do i need?

2. What type of tubing should i use if i want to attach a rigid tube setup to the rig? Black tubing from home depot? I've seen people use copper and galvanized tubing as well. Shouldn't it be high pressure tubing?

3. The Bayou Classic site sells the banjo with a 30psi regulator, but the gas guy i talked to said that was overkill. thoughts?

4. O have the orifices (orifi?) coming in for the Banjo burners. I tried to get it up and running without the orifice and a 1psi BBQ regulator and got a 2 foot yellow flame. That's obviously not the way to go. Should the flame coming out of the banjos be an short blue flame like you'd have on your home stove, or cone out more like a jet engine? Is the output rate of the flame overkill and draining my tanks too fast if it sounds like a F-16?

5. Does anyone else have a similar setup? If so, how much gas do you end up using on a typical brewday?

6. should i get a T splitter and just use black propane hoses to run the banjos independantly from the smaller MashTun burner?

As you can tell i'm at a loss and there isn't much info on this on any of the forums. The internets seems to offer contradictory info as well.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.


thanks ,

Mrs. McHandbag
 
1. I would use an adjustable 30 psi regulator for all 3 and put some nice thumb type valves in front of any solenoid valves so you can regulate the flame at each burner.

2. Any of them will work. After the regulator its all low pressures.

3. Stay with the 30 psi adjustable regulator. It gives you more control.

4. You want a blue flame. At the right mix you can dial them all the way down and have little blue dimples that barely flicker. At wide open they will be huge blue flames and it will roar a little.

5. I have one of the burners and have 2 buddies with the the Brutus and 3 burners. These burners are efficient. I noticed I use half the gas compared to my old one. I don't keep track of how many batches but its several 10 gallon from one tank.

6. You can do it that way or just hard plumb them with black pipe.

You are finding there are several ways to skin a cat. I would suggest you study all the different brutus 10 pictures out there to see how you prefer it to look.
 
McHandbag said:
I'm in the process of building out my Brutus 10 knock-off, and i'm running into some issues with plumbing the system for propane.

I have two banjo burners for the HLT and Kettle and a smaller cast iron burner for Mash temp regulation.

My questions are as follows.
1. The small one has a 10psi regulator attached. If i want to run all three burners off the same tank, what psi do i need?

2. What type of tubing should i use if i want to attach a rigid tube setup to the rig? Black tubing from home depot? I've seen people use copper and galvanized tubing as well. Shouldn't it be high pressure tubing?

3. The Bayou Classic site sells the banjo with a 30psi regulator, but the gas guy i talked to said that was overkill. thoughts?

4. O have the orifices (orifi?) coming in for the Banjo burners. I tried to get it up and running without the orifice and a 1psi BBQ regulator and got a 2 foot yellow flame. That's obviously not the way to go. Should the flame coming out of the banjos be an short blue flame like you'd have on your home stove, or cone out more like a jet engine? Is the output rate of the flame overkill and draining my tanks too fast if it sounds like a F-16?

5. Does anyone else have a similar setup? If so, how much gas do you end up using on a typical brewday?

6. should i get a T splitter and just use black propane hoses to run the banjos independantly from the smaller MashTun burner?

As you can tell i'm at a loss and there isn't much info on this on any of the forums. The internets seems to offer contradictory info as well.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.


thanks ,

Mrs. McHandbag
Click to expand...

If you are building a Brutus 10 clone, Lonnie uses low pressure propane (<11 WC). I never understood why here in New York black pipe is code for Natural Gas (low pressure) but it's fine to use copper for propane.
 
Sawdustguy said:
If you are building a Brutus 10 clone, Lonnie uses low pressure propane (<11 WC). I never understood why here in New York black pipe is code for Natural Gas (low pressure) but it's fine to use copper for propane.
Click to expand...

From what I have read the Sulfur added to NG reacts with Copper.
 
Building a manifold distribution system for your burners using black pipe is pretty straight forward. That's what I've got on my single tier stand and it's a really clean design. I had a 3-tier stand where I used a small distribution piece with propane hoses to the burners. It worked fine, but I thought it was a little ugly.

I think either a 20 or 30 psi adjustable regulator would be fine. The 3 tier stand I had used a 10 psi reg and I had no problems with that on 10 gal batches, but I wasn't using banjo burners. They may work better w/ 20+ psi regs. I've got a 30 psi reg on my current stand, but I never open it all the way up, so it's probably overkill.

I usually get three 10 gal brews out of a propane tank.

Here's some pics of the plumbing I've done if it helps any.

DSCN2938.JPG


DSCN3792.JPG


brew%20stand%20in%20action.jpg


brew_stand_plumbing.JPG
 
Thanks Sparky. That's what i was looking for. The pictures are a big help. Looks like i have a home depot trip ahead of me this weekend. Do you have any pictures of the top of your stand? I wanted to see how you mounted the burners.
 
It may not be clear from the pics, but that IS how I mounted the burners. Each burner is hard plumbed to the entire propane distribution manifold with very small SS jets that are pipe threaded. Then the plumbing is attached to the front of the stand on the sides using those 2 piece galvanized pipe clamps (you can see these in the 2nd pic). The pipe threaded jets were the key with those burners. Must jets have a flared fitting that you can't really attach to pipe fittings. I'm not sure what you've got or will need with the banjo burners. The jets are here in case you need them.
 
Oh i see. ON closer examination i see that you're not using banjo burners. Don't think i can mount those monsters like you did yours. Would weigh about 100lbs. I think i'm going to look for a flex-line that i can link between the valve and the burners. My two outside burners are angled in at 45 degrees, so getting a rigid gas line to them may prove difficult.

What you (and morebeer) call jets Bayou Calassic calls on orifice btw. Just in case anyone else is reading and is getting confused by the lingo. Here's the link for that:
Miscellaneous Propane Burner Parts, Propane Gas Orifice

You will need one of these for each Banjo burner unless you want a 2 foot camp fire.
 
Reviving an old thread, so I can hopefully get some extra input - I'm having the same problems trying to figure out my gas layout. I'm basically going with Lonnie's frame, with a few modifications - since I won't be using any automation at all, I want the burner valves front mounted on the front. Like an idiot, I ordered banjo burners, now realizing they're WAY too big for the original frame dimensions, which complicates it even more. I was going to go with lehr's version of a top mounted gas beam, but with his configuration, wouldn't the burners be mounted too low (they've gotta be 6-8 inches under the surface of the keggle?)

Also Sparky, if you're reading - do those ball valves give you enough control over your burners?
 
samc said:
From what I have read the Sulfur added to NG reacts with Copper.
Click to expand...

That is a LONG term issue that is not a concern for a periodic use setting like this. People used to use copper and even flex copper in some places for gas lines and they lasted decades.
 
The H2S in natural gas used to be the reason for aluminum tube and SS flex but almost all is scrubbed at the extraction plant stage these days to satisfy the gas turbine power folks requirements.
 

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