Need more air to my burner

So I just finished building my all grain stand a couple days ago. We decided to fire it up for the first time today and simulate a brew with water just to make sure everything works out fine.

When we fired up our boil burner (10" Banjo Burner) we adjusted the vents to get a nice blue flame. However, upon placing the kettle on top of the burner our flame was choked and instantly turned a bright bright yellow.

Here is how the Boil burner is setup:



We tried simulating this with one of our other burners for the Mash Tun to see if we got the same effect. Even with the kettle on the flame maintained a nice blue with very little yellow.

Here is how the Mash Burner is setup:



As you can see, there is significantly more space in between the stand and the heat shield on the burner for the Mash than there is on the burner for the Boil. This was done because we are using two different pots that dont have the same diameter on the base.

My best guess is that the burner for the Mash gets more air flow to the flame than the burner for the boil due to this extra space. When we place the kettle on the boil our guess is the flame is getting choked too much.

I'm looking for ways to try and improve air flow to the boil burner. So far the idea that seems to sound best is to drill holes or cut gaps into the heat shields here:



I feel like this will allow more air to get to the flame and prevent all the wasted energy. But before I start cutting I wanted to get the opinions of all you esteemed members of the HBT forum.

Thought, ideas?

I'm thinking there's a different issue here. The blue flame is indicative of a pr-mixed flame with a good fuel / air mixture prior to combustion - the entire mixture burns at once. The yellow flame is indicative of a boundary layer flame, where you have mostly fuel coming from the jet and the fuel mixes with the oxygen in the air where the two meet after the nozzle. Where the ratio is at the right percent of fuel to oxygen (upper flammability limit), you get burning.

My point - the flame color has less to do with the entrained air that is part of the convection process and more to do with the mix prior to the nozzle. Have you tried messing with the air valve in the propane line while the kettle is on?

BadNewsBrewery said:

My point - the flame color has less to do with the entrained air that is part of the convection process and more to do with the mix prior to the nozzle. Have you tried messing with the air valve in the propane line while the kettle is on?

Click to expand...

If by air valve you mean the vent on the burner then yes. Right now it is wide open. If we close it at all the flame just gets yellower and yellower.

Every burner has the vent wide open and produces a nice blue flame. The only one that produces a yellow flame is the boil and it only does it when the kettle is placed on the burner.

The reason I brought up the holes idea is because I noticed on my turkey fryer that the heat shield around that burner has about 3 holes the size of a thumb on it....?

Do you have an air compressor? Try blowing air into the vent, see if that blues up the flame. Could be a fun experiment anyways...

why don't you tr putting some wedges underneath the brew kettle to give the flame someplace . Sorry this is from my phone