compare bayou classic burners

Ive searched and although there are a lot of comparisons between sq 10 and sq 14, there arent many comparing the KAB4 to either of the SP models.

Can anyone tell me if the KAB4 is overkill for a full boil on a 5 gal batch (7-8 gal) in a 40 qt pot? Would I be better off just saving the extra money and getting the SP 14, or go nuts and get the KAB4?

which is more efficient?
which is more stable?
which is more appropriate? (ie. If I dont need 210000 IBUs)
which is easier to use?

thoughts?

I've used the standard turkey fryer propane burners, which work like crap not only for 5 gallon boils, but also for 10 gallon batches. After that, I switched to this one http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003B7USOM/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20. It's the kab6 I think. It works awesome. Yes, it's overkill, but it's amazingly simple to tone down using the regulator it comes with. I typically go through a 20lb propane tank in 3 batches given that I heat all of my water and boil on that tank for a 5 gallon batch.

Hope this helps,
Jacob

anyone else have an opinion they would be willing to share?

I recently purchased the KAB4. It's overkill for my 5 gal batches in a 10 gal kettle. If I had it to do again, I'd go with: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009JXYQ4/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 and save on the initial investment and on gas consumed.

Pilgarlic said:

I recently purchased the KAB4. It's overkill for my 5 gal batches in a 10 gal kettle. If I had it to do again, I'd go with: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009JXYQ4/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 and save on the initial investment and on gas consumed.

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+1 I'd pick the SQ-14 type burner over any of the others. It's an ideal burner for home brewing and they are inexpensive to boot. You can also buy just the burner casting itself, without a stand in case you wanted to mount it on a rig.

Maybe I'm the exception but I do okay with the cheap jet burner and get 5-6 all grain batches from a tank (5G.) It probably would go much quicker with the better burner though so decide if economy of time or money is more important.

craigd said:

Maybe I'm the exception but I do okay with the cheap jet burner and get 5-6 all grain batches from a tank (5G.) It probably would go much quicker with the better burner though so decide if economy of time or money is more important.

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So do a ton of other people, so you are far from alone. Much depends on what you are using the burner for and how you operate it. When using the burner on a BK, I don't think it makes a great deal of difference which burner you choose. It's a different story when direct firing a MT. As for economy, from what I have observed, a lot of brewers waste a lot of fuel running their burners much higher than necessary and that is no fault of the actual burner. It's always a trade off between speed and fuel savings and it's not a linear relationship at all.

I got the SP-10 BC burner, and it's been all I could have asked for. Perfect for my 5 gallon (6.5 gallon pre-boil) batches, but it's probably going to be underpowered for 10 gal. I'll get around 5 batches per 20 lb. cylinder.

rico567 said:

I got the SP-10 BC burner, and it's been all I could have asked for. Perfect for my 5 gallon (6.5 gallon pre-boil) batches, but it's probably going to be underpowered for 10 gal. I'll get around 5 batches per 20 lb. cylinder.

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The SP-10 will boil a ten gallon batch no problem. I recently boiled up a 23 gallon batch with one. Pre-boil volume was 23 gallons. I think you could boil 50 gallons with one of those things.

I also have the SP-10 and like it a lot. It was the cheapest burner I could find as far as btu/$ by a long shot (185,000 btu and ~$60). The only two downsides IMO are that the stand is kinda flimsy, and it's not quite wide enough to hold a keggle, both of which are a non issue if mounting in a stand. As a DIY'er the stand issue was an easy fix for me, but YMMV.

I bought the KAB4. There is an initial learning curve but once you figure it out, the thing is magic. Do yourself a huge favor if you get one. Buy some cheap aluminum flashing that comes in a roll, you can find at home depot or lowes in the roofing section, cut a piece to go around the burner stand. Do this and you will only have to keep the flame at a minimum to boil. It may be a bit of overkill but I find it works fast at getting up to strike and sparge temps. Plus it looks cool and I'm a man damn it! I must overdo it, its in the contract.

I have 2 no-name turkey fryer burners that I picked up at the local hardware store. They're rated at 72,000 BTU. They're plenty fast enough - either one of them can heat my strike water in about the same time it takes to grind the grain. Heating the sparge water only takes about 10 minutes, and bringing everything up to a boil after sparging is only another 10 minutes or so. Plus, I get way more than 3 brews on a tank of propane. Having 2 burners is nice, too, as I can do two simultaneous batches on brew day.

Basically, don't get too caught up in the BTU rating of burners. The higher pressure a burner is means that it can burn more fuel in a given amount of time, but it tells you very little about how much heat it can actually transfer into your kettle, versus how much is simply lost around the kettle and into the air.

Much more important to me is to look at the construction of the unit. How solid is the stand? What is the build quality like? Will it hold up to a 200lb load with a full converted keg on top, week after week?

I have the larger banjo burner from a kab6 and it is very heavy but works very well. When dialed in properly I am using less gas than I did with a cone shaped turkey fryer burner, and once I hit a boil I can turn it way down. It's also much quieter than the turkey fryer. I think the smaller banjo would be just fine though.

Catt22 said:

The SP-10 will boil a ten gallon batch no problem. I recently boiled up a 23 gallon batch with one. Pre-boil volume was 23 gallons. I think you could boil 50 gallons with one of those things.

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That's what I needed to know.

I'm moving to an all grain 10-Gallon system and have 1 SP-10 that I've used for 5 gallon batches. I love it. I designed my stand to hold a second SP-10 burner to boil the wort for my 10 gallons, but was recently wondering if it would actually handle the extra liquid.

Thanks

I went with the SQ14 over the SP10 because I use a keg converted keggle and didn't want to have to modify the burner stand to hold the keg. But for the 2 times I've used the SQ14 it's been more than enough for 6 and 7 gallon boils!

After a bit of a setback due to getting laid-off, I am once again looking to gather the equipment for a move to all grain 10 gallon batches.
I kinda like how sturdy the SQ14 looks. Is the SQ14 adequate for 10 gallon batches vs. the SP10? Been looking at Amazon and the SQ14 has gone back up to @ 60 bucks. Can almost get a Banjo for that much...

ChrisS68 said:

After a bit of a setback due to getting laid-off, I am once again looking to gather the equipment for a move to all grain 10 gallon batches.
I kinda like how sturdy the SQ14 looks. Is the SQ14 adequate for 10 gallon batches vs. the SP10? Been looking at Amazon and the SQ14 has gone back up to @ 60 bucks. Can almost get a Banjo for that much...

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You can still find the SQ-14 at a low price. Just a quick google produced this one for $42, but I think there's shipping to consider. Shop around some and I think you can do even better, but at some point your time will be worth more than saving a few bucks on the price.

The SQ-14 and the Banjo are two completely different critters. I prefer the SQ-14 over the Banjo.

Catt22 said:

You can still find the SQ-14 at a low price. Just a quick google produced this one for $42, but I think there's shipping to consider. Shop around some and I think you can do even better, but at some point your time will be worth more than saving a few bucks on the price.

The SQ-14 and the Banjo are two completely different critters. I prefer the SQ-14 over the Banjo.

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I agree. 10 bucks here or there is hardly a deal breaker.
I guess my main concern is whether the SQ14 is up to doing 10 gallon batches efficiently; from what I've read it sounds like it is.
I'm just one of those who's hung up on the BTUs. :fro:

ChrisS68 said:

I agree. 10 bucks here or there is hardly a deal breaker.
I guess my main concern is whether the SQ14 is up to doing 10 gallon batches efficiently; from what I've read it sounds like it is.
I'm just one of those who's hung up on the BTUs. :fro:

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I use the SQ-14 to boil in a converted keg often filled nearly to the brim. I think I've exceeded 14 gallons in the BK at times. The burner handles this volume no problem at all and at way below full throttle. One of my buddies has a banjo and I've brewed with him several times. It was my observation that the banjo puts out way too much heat and uses too much fuel in the process. We were boiling some 13.5 gallons in a keg kettle. We could easily maintain the boil at the lowest possible flame level on the banjo. Any lower and it would easily blow out with the slightest breeze. Even at that low flame level it used a lot more gas than I was accustomed to with the SQ-14. I think we went through nearly a half a tank of fuel for that 12 gallon batch. I'm very skeptical when it comes to btu ratings on these burners. There are no regulations governing the claims, so often the mfg's will exaggerate the ratings for marketing purposes I would guess. There's a limit to how much heat you can transfer through the bottom of a kettle. Surely, a hotter flame will get you there faster, but it's a diminishing return kind of thing. You can run a burner at a higher flame level and it will burn through a lot more fuel, but the gain won't be proportionate by a long shot. At least that's been my experience with these things. I've got three burners. One is a low pressure Camp Chef. Another has the same burner as the SP-10 and the third is the SQ-14. The Camp Chef works very well for my direct fired MT and has great flame control at low levels, but it lacks the horsepower needed for a BK. The SP-10 seems to use more fuel than the SQ-14 and it is more difficult to regulate at low flame levels, but it definitely has enough power for large batches. The SQ-14 is the best of both worlds IMO. It has both good low level flame control and the power for large batch boils. If I where to start over, all three would be the SQ-14's. I don't actually use three burners though. I just happened to get a deal on the SP-10 version that I could not pass up. I heat my strike and sparge water with a bucket heater and only use the burners for the MT and BK. I'll probably sell the SP-10 eventually.

Both burners are built like a tank. I found out the hard way, though, that he SP-10 will not hold a keggle. I ended up having to buy an Sq-14 4 months later.

I would get the SQ-14 because you never know what your brewing future might hold. Upgrading the same gear over and over sucks.

From the images it looks like the burner of the SQ-14 is much closer to the kettle than the SP-10 burner is.

Good point HickoryMike. I hate having to buy the same equipment but larger. Over the past 15 years I have accumulated 4 stock pots ranging from 3 gallon up to 15 gallon. When I moved to All grain I had to get bigger and decided I should do 10 gallon batches.

So much to consider when I really should be working. But this is way more fun.

+1 on the SQ-14. All I need for boiling 6-7 gallons in a keggle

I have the sq 14 and it works great for my keggles (10 gal)batches. The sq 14 is the way to go if you ever plan on getting kegs. If you use smaller pots i would imagine the sq10 would suffice. I get 2.5 (10gal.) batches per propane tank.

I've got x4 SP-10s. I bought a 30PSI regulator, and 3 burners for $65 shipped on Amazon. $15/burner and $20 for the regulator (all free shipping items).

Heating up water in HLT is easy easy because you can slowly heat while mashing (to save fuel).

Direct firing the mash for recirculation can easily be overdone so the SP-10 has more than enough ass for that.

I'm going to be running x2 SP-10s under my BK. One SP-10 is plenty for a 5 gallon batch so I figure that x2 SP-10s will be plenty for a 10 gallon and possibly overkill. Just depends on how fast you wanna get your brew day completed.

I went with a double burner on the BK because I might want to kick up to 20 gallon batches one day and I'm hoping I won't have to upgrade the system to do that. Just the Tuns/Kettle. Plumbing propane line for double burners is easy and you can keep the second SP-10 turned off if you don't need it. $15 for another burner for the HLT might be necessary, but that' no biggie at all. I also like that the SP-10s use fractions of propane compared to the bigger banjo burners and I wanted the high pressure setup.

My apologies. I should be saying the BG10 burner because I didn't get stands. BG10s are the burners off of SP10 setups. I went to amazon to find the burner and regulator to make sure my prices are correct. The burners are still $15 but the regulator is $25 now. The bottom line I mentioned in my last post would come to $70 with what I found today. Sorry for not specifying about the factory stands.

I just upgraded to a 20 gallon aluminum kettle to start doing 10 gallon brew in a bag batches and was worried that it might be too much for my SP10, so I e-mailed Bayou Classic who told me that it will safely hold a 25 gallon pot full of liquid. I also have the leg extensions on mine and had no problems at all using it to bring 19 gallons of liquid to a rolling boil using ground water in just over an hour. It was very sturdy and secure.