I need help narrowing down my problems with my newly built system.
I went with 3 BG14 burners. I bought a preset 30psi regulator and hooked everything up. On my initial test run, I lit the BK burner since it was the easiest and not solenoid controlled. It seemed to work fine once I adjusted the shutter to get a nice blue flame. Feelilng proud of myself I turned that burner off, lit the pilot lights and adjusted them. Then turned on the solenoids and both the HLT and MLT worked fine once the shutters were adjusted on them as well. Grinning ear to ear I lit the BK again to have all 3 burning in my crowning glory, once lit all 3 quickly reduced in flame until they burned out! Thinking the regulator froze up (even though it was only moderately cold to the touch) I walked away before I let it drive me nuts! The next morning I fired them an got the same result. 2 days later I had time to mess with it again, so I removed the 30psi preset reg and used a 0-60psi reg. I was immediately able to run all 3 burners no problem. Problem solved right? Not so fast!
Last night I wanted to give it a trial run with just 10gal of water per keggle to see how fast I can reach temps etc... first attempt flames seemed very oxygen starved, but still blue if that makes sense. Then the burn out reared it's head again. So I removed the Keggles to see what was going on and I just wasn't getting good flames. So I started tweaking the 0-60psi regulator to find the sweet spot. Thinking it needed more fuel I turned up the pressure on the regulator and the flames quickly burned out. Once I finally got the regulator set to what is seemingly the best setting I tried the boil kettle alone. Placed it on top and filled with 10 gal of water and lit the burner. It is virtually impossible to see the burner or flame when the keggle is in place (pictures to follow) and when I tried to look underneath I could see vapor and slow rolling flames billowing from beneath the burner, around the wind shield and from under the keggle. I was able to stop that by turning the needle valve for the burner (regulator maintained at it's setting) down, but at that point is was a very small frame and after 30 min the 10 gallons was only up to 130 degrees.
Does any of this sound familiar to anyone?
Here is my view with Keggle in place:
From underneath:
My initial thought is to move the burner down to the bottom set of holes in the windshield and see if will draw in more air... and also do what I read somewhere on here and cut out vent holes in the rear bottom apron of the keggle. Does this sound like a move in the right direction?
Now here is a shot of my manifold I built:
My original thought was that I was having scavenging issues because the propane enters on the right and my burn out issues were when I would fire the BK which flows out the far left. Thinking the fuel would flow faster to it (across the manifold) and scavenge fuel from the 4 outlets feeding the HLT, MLT and pilot lights. But on some occasions it has worked with all 3 burning (nothing on top) as I would expect them to.
Here are some other specs that might help. each burner and pilot light have an individual needle valve. The 3 burners each have a 1/16" orifice. The original orifice came with I believe a 3/64" opening, not having a 3/64" bit I used a 1/16" (1/64" larger) to open up the new 90degree high pressure orifice to the size of the original. I did try to use 90degree orfice as drilled from the factory, but i couldn't get larger than a 1/4" flame out of the burners. So does that 1/64" larger orifice make the difference? Am I fighting a battle I can't win because of that? If so, what size do I need to drill to convert these to low pressure burners and what size regulator will I need? And finally if I go the low pressure route, looking at my manifolds etc., is there any other issues I need to look at for best effectiveness of the system?
Thanks for any Help! I just want to get this thing making some beer!
I went with 3 BG14 burners. I bought a preset 30psi regulator and hooked everything up. On my initial test run, I lit the BK burner since it was the easiest and not solenoid controlled. It seemed to work fine once I adjusted the shutter to get a nice blue flame. Feelilng proud of myself I turned that burner off, lit the pilot lights and adjusted them. Then turned on the solenoids and both the HLT and MLT worked fine once the shutters were adjusted on them as well. Grinning ear to ear I lit the BK again to have all 3 burning in my crowning glory, once lit all 3 quickly reduced in flame until they burned out! Thinking the regulator froze up (even though it was only moderately cold to the touch) I walked away before I let it drive me nuts! The next morning I fired them an got the same result. 2 days later I had time to mess with it again, so I removed the 30psi preset reg and used a 0-60psi reg. I was immediately able to run all 3 burners no problem. Problem solved right? Not so fast!
Last night I wanted to give it a trial run with just 10gal of water per keggle to see how fast I can reach temps etc... first attempt flames seemed very oxygen starved, but still blue if that makes sense. Then the burn out reared it's head again. So I removed the Keggles to see what was going on and I just wasn't getting good flames. So I started tweaking the 0-60psi regulator to find the sweet spot. Thinking it needed more fuel I turned up the pressure on the regulator and the flames quickly burned out. Once I finally got the regulator set to what is seemingly the best setting I tried the boil kettle alone. Placed it on top and filled with 10 gal of water and lit the burner. It is virtually impossible to see the burner or flame when the keggle is in place (pictures to follow) and when I tried to look underneath I could see vapor and slow rolling flames billowing from beneath the burner, around the wind shield and from under the keggle. I was able to stop that by turning the needle valve for the burner (regulator maintained at it's setting) down, but at that point is was a very small frame and after 30 min the 10 gallons was only up to 130 degrees.
Does any of this sound familiar to anyone?
Here is my view with Keggle in place:
From underneath:
My initial thought is to move the burner down to the bottom set of holes in the windshield and see if will draw in more air... and also do what I read somewhere on here and cut out vent holes in the rear bottom apron of the keggle. Does this sound like a move in the right direction?
Now here is a shot of my manifold I built:
My original thought was that I was having scavenging issues because the propane enters on the right and my burn out issues were when I would fire the BK which flows out the far left. Thinking the fuel would flow faster to it (across the manifold) and scavenge fuel from the 4 outlets feeding the HLT, MLT and pilot lights. But on some occasions it has worked with all 3 burning (nothing on top) as I would expect them to.
Here are some other specs that might help. each burner and pilot light have an individual needle valve. The 3 burners each have a 1/16" orifice. The original orifice came with I believe a 3/64" opening, not having a 3/64" bit I used a 1/16" (1/64" larger) to open up the new 90degree high pressure orifice to the size of the original. I did try to use 90degree orfice as drilled from the factory, but i couldn't get larger than a 1/4" flame out of the burners. So does that 1/64" larger orifice make the difference? Am I fighting a battle I can't win because of that? If so, what size do I need to drill to convert these to low pressure burners and what size regulator will I need? And finally if I go the low pressure route, looking at my manifolds etc., is there any other issues I need to look at for best effectiveness of the system?
Thanks for any Help! I just want to get this thing making some beer!