Natural gas burners pt 2

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hoplobster

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Hi,

I'm in the process of moving my operation to the basement and I'm getting closer to purchsing a natural gas burner, but the burners I have found don't appear to have any sort of regulator. For those of you that use such burners, how do you control intensity of the flame? I don't want to scorch the wort, but I also want to have a nice rolling boil...

Any advice or suggestions on this would be helpful.

Thanks!
 
I don't know the pressure of the natural gas as supplied by my utility. Do I need to have a regulator installed upstream of the ball valves?
 
A couple guys have had good luck with a simple ball valve but others are claiming the need for an appliance regulator to knock your house pressure down a bit. My burners run OK within a certain flow range but they are touchy.
 
With my ball valve 1/2 open, I have a raging inferno of intense heat that is way too much fire for comfortable brewing.

Your pressure at the burner depends in part on how many feet of gas line of particular diameter is going to your burners. And also the pressure your gas company delivers to you, of course. I've got less than 25 feet of line from my outdoor brewery to the gas company meter, and about 1/3rd of that is one inch pipe. Then it necks down to 3/4 pipe for a few feet, then it is 1/2 inch for the last 12 feet. I chose a 12 foot long outdoor natural gas appliance line specifically because it causes a 1.3 inch pressure drop. I think I need to drop the pressure a bit more, so I'm considering adding an appliance regulator (like Maxitrol) to my Brutus clone to try to tame the beast.
 
billtzk said:
With my ball valve 1/2 open, I have a raging inferno of intense heat that is way too much fire for comfortable brewing.
Click to expand...

Same here, especially with my 23 jet burners...they burn great 3/4 open, but the heat is extreme overkill. Turn it down to something manageable, and there is insufficient venturi action to draw in enough air, and they burn rich and sooty.

I've had a little better luck with propane ring burners, after drilling the orifices. Still, they are less than ideal and don't offer the wide adjustment range I can get with my propane burners.
 
I was just about to order the 32 jet 10 inch "medium" burners. I bought 25 gallon pots, and want to keep open the option of doing 15 or 20 gallon batches. I thought I would need lots of BTUs to boil them. Was I about to overkill this?

I found some $14 1/2 inch pipe needle valves online. Would they help make this manageable? (I can still take the $6 ball valves back to Menards). Would they be sufficient without the regulator? I didn't find specs on them. Will a needle valve allow enough flow?

I would like to stick with natural gas. I don't have any propane around except for a little propane torch. I have easy access to 1/2 inch and 1 inch natural gas pipes. I have a 1/2 inch pipe running out to my grill, a short run from a 1 inch reducer, so natural gas should be easy. I haven't seen many natural gas burner choices besides the Cajun Cookware 23 or 32 or 44 jet burners. I'm sure open to suggestions. Thanks in advance. I'm no engineer, and took basic physics 20+ years ago, which isn't helping me much with sorting this all out. I sure appreciate the voices of experience.
 
I personally think the 23's are fine for 20 gallon boils. I have one of them choked down to only 11 tips and it gets and keeps 14 gallons at a rolling boil. I'd go with the 23 and try running on a simple ball valve first, just don't expect to get a huge range of adjustability. They're essentially on or off. Close the valve too much, you get orange sooty flame. Open too wide and they pull too much though the venturis and some tips blow out. You'll know when you get it right. Also, they MUST mount at least 4" below the kettle. I mean literally a 4" gap between the top tip of the burners to the kettle.
 
ThreeDogsNE said:
Has anyone tried these?

3-Ring Burner (natural gas) - CHINESE WOK RANGES - RANGES - EQUIPMENT

They look more like a big version of familiar stove burners, so I would guess that they might be more adjustable. I'm not sure how I would hook them up, though. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I have a couple which resemble the inner ring of that burner. They are more adjustable than the jet-style burners, but not by much. Same problems...full tilt blows too hard and extinguishes some jets. Close the valve too much and it burns yellow and sooty. Just as Bobby described, it's basically an "on/off" situation.

I'm going to try using an NG appliance regulator, so we'll see if that helps. I'm pretty much flying blind here, but I'll figure something out eventually!
 
Bobby_M said:
My first attempt at regulating will probably be pulling the gas valve out of a discarded water heater. Most of the time they're thrown out due to leaks, not a bad valve.
Click to expand...

I found a reasonably priced regulator on eBay, but I like your idea better. Grab the whole burner assembly, if it can be easily removed!
 
I looked over at mcmaster-carr's website and searched for "needle valves" and it came up with a bunch.

Not sure if these would work for gas but they look much like the ones that you see on the regulators.

Anyone try any of these?
 
Ugh...my regulator arrived, but it's 3/4" NPT, not the 1/2" I ordered. Oh well...at least the seller is an honest guy, and he's sending me a replacement ASAP.
 
ThreeDogsNE said:
Has anyone tried these?

3-Ring Burner (natural gas) - CHINESE WOK RANGES - RANGES - EQUIPMENT

They look more like a big version of familiar stove burners, so I would guess that they might be more adjustable. I'm not sure how I would hook them up, though. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Before you buy these, make sure they are not for commercial high-pressure gas lines. Commercial high-pressure gas lines are running at a lot higher pressure than home pressure. I don't know what the cost of adding a second meter and regulator would cost, but other then a recurring monthly minimum bill, this might be an option.

I wish this was specified at seller's web sites without the need to contact them.
 
I have the burner sitting on my rig, which is still under construction. I just found these valves this week, and ordered them yesterday:

Fixitshop parts: VALVE, GAS (BODY, FLAT DOWN)

I also found a parts diagram for a pot stock stove which uses the burner and these valves. It includes a regulator on the 3/4 inch gas pipe. I will put that in the next post.
 
Here is the diagram for the stock pot range that uses these burners:

http://www.castlestove.com/pdfs/uploads/csp18_2_6_2008_3_32_36_PM.pdf

Actually the valves are for a different brand of stove. Looking at web sites there seem to be several brands of these that are cosmetically identical. I suspect they are like Chinese or Taiwanese power tools, with the same plant as OEM for several brands. I am betting this is true, though $26 plus shipping is not a big wager.

My plan now is to hook them up first without a regulator on the line to use the gas at 2 psi, and see how it does. I do have a real plumber coming to look it over before I light it. If this works I actually plan to use three of these, one under each of the lauter, mash, and boil kettles. Sort of a natural gas version of Scuba Steve's rig, which I have otherwise largely copied. At over $450 per stock pot range I can't justify getting one of those, much less 3 of them.
 
you need a regulator, every applinace has a regulator, you may not see it but they are intended to recieve 7'' wc and bump it down to 3.5'' wc. when you send 7'' wc into a burner you are running the burner very rich, with a lot of un burned fuel, which produces high co. when you claim that you are correcting this with turning the ball valve down to make it burn right you are decreaseing the volume of gas not the pressure. if you regulate the pressure you can use your ball valve to control the volume of gas to control the amount of heat to your pot,you will have total control over your burner, your burner will act like a stove top burner, not just making it work, this guy wants to brew indoors and if he does what you guys are telling him to do he may hurt a family member. i know everyone gets a kick out of cutting corners to save money but this is not the place to do it. if you are going to brew indoors at least buy a nighthawk co detector, have one in your brew room and one where your family sleeps.

i don't mean to ***** but if you took the regulator out of your range and your trying to make supper and you have large flames coming out the top of your stove, so you call a repair guy and he tells you to just run your burner at 1/4 throttle and it will be o.k. you loose 3/4 the use of your stove.

just my opinion

Nicksteck
 
I am running a 1 inch pipe to supply these burners. I intend to run 3 burners from this, possibly all at once. The burners are listed at different sites as either 90,000 or 137,000 btu/hr each. I am trying to do this in my basement or on my back patio with only house pressure. Do I have enough pressure and flow to do this, or not enough, or too much? I How much pressure and how much gas volume do I need to get this done? I haven't found a solid reference to guide me on this, and I'm out of my area here. I welcome any experience or expertise here.

The burners do have an adjustable venturi to allow adjustment of the air/gas mix before the burner. I do have a carbon monoxide monitor that works. If I have to, I'll move out on the patio, but I would rather stay in the basement. I would also rather buy the right stuff once, and do it right the first time.
 
Depending on whether I stay in the basement to brew or have to move outside, the pipe run could be as short as 15 feet and as long as 35 feet of 1 inch pipe. The main pipe these come off of is 1&1/4 inch, and also feeds the furnaces and water heaters. Whether inside or out there would be six 90* elbows before the valves, which also have a 90* bend in them. That includes the bends or tees on the brewing rig.

Nicksteck and others, thanks for your help.

Hoplobster, sorry to hijack your thread.
 
Still hoping to get some guidance on the above question.

Another question about mounting the burner: It takes 1&1/4 and 1&1/2 inch pipes after the venturis. Both venturis are 1&1/4 inch, so I was going to use this for both, with a reducing bushing. I can't find 1&1/4 black pipe at my local big box stores, but they have galvanized in that size. The signs there say galvanized pipe is not to be used for gas. Is there a significant reason why I couldn't use galvanized for that 12 inch stub into the burner?
 
nicksteck said:
you need a regulator, every applinace has a regulator, you may not see it but they are intended to recieve 7'' wc and bump it down to 3.5'' wc. when you send 7'' wc into a burner you are running the burner very rich, with a lot of un burned fuel, which produces high co. when you claim that you are correcting this with turning the ball valve down to make it burn right you are decreaseing the volume of gas not the pressure. if you regulate the pressure you can use your ball valve to control the volume of gas to control the amount of heat to your pot,you will have total control over your burner, your burner will act like a stove top burner, not just making it work, this guy wants to brew indoors and if he does what you guys are telling him to do he may hurt a family member. i know everyone gets a kick out of cutting corners to save money but this is not the place to do it. if you are going to brew indoors at least buy a nighthawk co detector, have one in your brew room and one where your family sleeps.

i don't mean to ***** but if you took the regulator out of your range and your trying to make supper and you have large flames coming out the top of your stove, so you call a repair guy and he tells you to just run your burner at 1/4 throttle and it will be o.k. you loose 3/4 the use of your stove.

just my opinion

Nicksteck
Click to expand...
Very helpful reply!I am myself considering using a natural setup for brewing and was wondering if i should use a regulator for a hurricane burner i am considering purchasing. Can the neccessary regulator be purchased from northern brewer or midwest supplies if so would that be considered a low psi. regulator. thanks
 
i am also purchasing 3, 10 jet burners and the idea of not being able to have an adjustable flame (all or nothing really turns me off) anyone have a source for a regulator?
 

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