Propane Burner/Cooker suggestions?

Just joined the forum recently and thought I would tap the knowledge of those here. I'm currently making the jump to all grain. I've already picked up a 15.5 keg and am in the process of converting it. What I would like to know is if anyone can make a suggestion of a good quality propane burner. I'm looking for something that is relatively powerful but still efficient. I would prefer to avoid the "jet" type burners. I don't want to wait forever to achieve a boil, but I don't want to buy a new tank of propane every batch either. I saw the Hurricane burner on the Northern Brewer site and that looked appealing.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Don't skimp here. Bigger is better. Size matters. You want a rolling boil and you want to be able to bring 13 gallons of wort to a boil fairly quickly. Get something in the 150 kBTU range, 200k if you can find it. The 30 and 35 kBTU burners are a real dissappointment unless you are only boiling 3 gallons The cookers at Sabco are pretty good. I use two 170k burners for all grain (one for the HLT and the other for the kettle) and a single standard sized propane tank. Between heating strike water, sparge water and the 60 minute boil, all on the same tank of propane, I get about 3 brew sessions per tank. That's making 6 gallon batches each time. Not bad really. I wouldn't sacrifice the power and speed that a high horsepower burner will give you...but it's your nickel.

Prosit!

tnlandsailor said:

I get about 3 brew sessions per tank

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At about 15 bucks for the 5gal propane tank, that is a big part of the expense of a batch of beer! If your spending only 10-15 bucks on ingreedients this makes a huge percentage I am one who fortunately can, so I will spend it if this is something that will improve the quality of my beer but I am also one who considers it a challenge to minimize the cost of the beer. It's just neat to me to be able to tell someone that they are drinking a 25 cent beer that is as good and better than the ones they spend over a buck a piece at in the supermarket! I wonder how many people actually consider this expense when they evaluate the cost of their brews?

I am currently using a 35k burner (well, I imagine thats it since it came in a turkey fryer kit). I am a bit concerned over the lack of rolling boil in my 6.5 gallon boils. I do get a boil but I want just a bit more. I think I will go with the 100k model and see how it goes. They do have 200 and 300k models at this site as well. I invision myself going to 13gal boils in the future so at that time I may have to go bigger than the 100k but time / experience will direct that decision.

Well, just my opinion of the turkey fryer... no experience to share with the larger ones.

I've been useing the turkey fryer heater and it works great for me at $39.00 bucks it not too bad on the wallett ether..But I'm only doing 6.5 gal baches. With the lid slitly ajar in 15 min I'm cooking the malt and hops geting a good rolling boil with it turned down about a half way. It has improved the taste of the beer and cut down on the time I spend brewing.This can be a good or bad thing depending on how one looks at it..

I don't know what BTU my burner is, because I got it from a friend. It's just a turkey fryer base. But when I crank the thing up, I can bring 5 gallons of room temp water to boil in 15 minutes or so. Getting the wort to boil is never a problem, achieving boil without a boilover is. I get a really nice rolling boil at about 50%. If I crank it up a bit, I can git a vigorous boil that threatens to overflow my insufficient 6 gallon pot.

As much as I love my freebee burner, for a 15 gallon batch, you'll need something with more oomph.