Propane problem

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bbarr21

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All grain brewer, have a Brutus-esk set up but have a 10 psi propane regulator that causes my burners to eventually die out... What should I do?
 
I would think your using a high pressure regulator with low pressure burners. Are the burners BG12's? Does the flame lift away from the burners when lit?

You can try to swap the regulator with a grill regulator, which normally runs at low pressure.
 
I have to use two propane tanks because one will generally freeze up over the course of a brew day (I do back to back brew days). When one of the tanks freezes up, gas essentially ceases to flow. I just switch over to the other tank and it fires up again without a problem.

Next time your flame dies out, check to see if your Propane tank is iced over on the outside.
 
I don't think that is the problem. I have a dial regulator and if I turn it up directly there the flame comes back but eventually dies out again
 
The burn well throughout most of my brew day until I get to my boil, my farthest burner from the regulator
 
Bbarr, mine does the same thing. If I play with the regulator, I can get the flame back up for a minute or two. I can also gently shake the tank and get it going for another minute or two, but eventually, I have to switch.

I use a high pressure cast-iron burner as well.
 
If it is indeed icing (which it does sound like), just put the tank in a container of water.
No more freezing, no more flame dying.
 
Besides being used to make fire, Propane is used as a refrigerant. The faster you boil it off the lower its temp and pressure become. At the end of the brew day, your cylinders are low on fuel. The pressure is low in the cylinders. The cylinders can ice up and you lose the volume of fuel needed to fire the burners. Then, once you close the valves, the pressure builds up in the supply line to allow the burner to fire momentarily. A 200K burner running all out will eat a little more than 2 gallons of Propane an hour. A 20 pound cylinder holds a little over four gallons of LP. That comes to about 365K BTU per cylinder... For the amount of beer your brewing, get a bigger cylinder or more of the twennies.
 
Just got me thinking... put the propane in a kettle and then use the chilled water in your plate chiller or cfc...
 
Wouldn't the water just eventually get cold and allow the propane to freeze still? Does the bath idea have a desired effect on the pressure in the tank? Anyone with experience in this?
 
Here's an interesting resource on max sustainable BTU-per-hour using various sizes of propane tanks (due to inevitably icing over if you draw too much propane/hour).

http://www.flameengineering.com/Propane_Info.html

I don't know how the BTU's of their torches line up with the BTU's of propane burners, but if it's all completely combusted, I imagine the numbers match up ok. Basically a 20 pounder can supply 92K BTU's at 70F. Those burners can handle a lot more I think.
 
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