Hurricane Burner on NG not getting hot enough

I bought a hurricane burner and NG conversion valve from Northern Brewer. Even after adjusting the air damper ( or whatever that sliding piece is located where the valve connects on the burner) the flame is only about a quarter inch high. It did however have the correct shape and color. does this sound normal? It took almost 1 hour to bring 8 gal of 150F wort to a boil. I read on the forum somewhere about people drilling out the orifice, but wouldn't that lower the pressure even more?

Quarter inch high? Not normal! Wide open, that thing should make huge blue flames that lick around the sides of your kettle. What kind/size of NG supply hose are you using?

Talk more about your gas tubing. Size, length, how far away is the next largest trunk?

I just had this very problem and had a thread going in the DIY section. The first valve they sent didn't light at all, the second one they sent only got about a 1/4 high as well. I drilled out the oriface to 7/64 and it's working great now. I haven't boiled it yet, but the flame is much higher. Someone else said they went all the way up to 1/8.

What does the orifice look like? On mine (from Williams) it's actually a little tube, cemented in place...I don't think you could drill it out without destroying it.

Here is a link to the Orifice sizing chart for Natural Gas Low Pressure Orifice Chart, the banjo burner should be in the 80K-120K Btu range. The household system pressure is normally 4" WC., use that column for drill size selection.

I have a 5/8 inch .5psi gas hose coming off a 1.25" gas pipe. This hose was from an old gas grill that was hooked up to the same NG line. I never looked at the PSI reading on the hose until now, is that really low?
why is the orifice on the NG conversion valve much smaller than the propane orifice, when it needs to be larger than the propane orifice? Maybe I'll try the propane one, which is a little bigger than 1/16" tonight and see if it gives a larger flame.

aaron4osu said:

why is the orifice on the NG conversion valve much smaller than the propane orifice, when it needs to be larger than the propane orifice? Maybe I'll try the propane one, which is a little bigger than 1/16" tonight and see if it gives a larger flame.

Click to expand...

Something is definitely amiss, the NG orifice should be bigger than 1/16" and considerably larger than the LP orifice. I haven't seen mine (NG) since I installed it a year or so ago, but it is probably about 1/8".

My NG valve from northern brewer is around 1/8" also... I can get flames up about 1/4 of my keggle, and that's from a 1/2" line...

problem solved. i just called northern brewer, and the guy said they had received and sent me the wrong size valves for NG. He agreed with everyone here that the orifice should have been larger than the promane valve's orifice. He said he has had several people get the wrong valves. They're waiting on the correct ones to come in. So is the consensus between 7/64" and 1/8"? I'm going to drill out the one I have while I'm waiting for the correct one. I was wondering why my brew's took so long. I started heating the water for my first all grain at about 6:30pm. Pitched the yeast about 1:30am. lol it was a marathon!!

The real deal is that without testing and knowing your pressure on NG you have no way to dial in the burner accurately (unless you have many different sized orifices to swap in and out). Do the test from here and use the charts to figure out the right size. The standard one that Williams sells for NG was a bit too big for my set up.

hijacking this thread as it appears to be solved.

I have a hurricane with the standard LP orifice, but am trying to hook it up to NG. I drilled it out to 1/8 and I am not getting very tall (6 inch) flames with a little yellow at the tips regardless of damper setting... should I drill further or have I drilled too much?

another hijack here but does anyone have a guide for putting together a 3 hurricane burner setup on natural gas?

My main question would be how are you throttling the gas, what regulator would you use?

Also, is a hurricane burner overkill under a mash/tun?