Anyone using Low Pressure Small 6" Banjo burners

Amigos,

I like many am in the planning phase of my brutus single tier and wondering about the 6" low pressure Banjo Burners. Anyone out there have any experience with them? I don't see much listed in the forums.

They are rated to about 60K btu, so that means they likely burn more at 30K. They can be had for a mere $10 each from good ole agrisupply.

http://www.agrisupply.com/burner-cast-low-presure-multi-hole-/p/40282/ss/burner/

So if anyone has any input here, I am thinking about staying with Low pressure, and using these cheaper burners. Gentlemen I am all ears, let me know your thoughts, experiences etc.

Would there be that big a btu difference between this burner and a 10" Banjo run at low pressure?

Thanks

That looks like the burner on my byau classic sq14

It is not an SQ14, those have a 10" diameter, what I am inquiring about is the 6". But you are correct in that looks wise they appear to be identical. Yours is the high pressure 10" and I am curious about its little brother rated at about half the BTU's

Any help would be great, thanks......

Yea i use 2 of them, i have no problems getting to a boil with keggles

Hey SMAKUDWN,

what quantities are your boiling? do you mean you have 15 gal converted kegs and you are boiling 10-12 gallon batches?

how long does it take to get stuff up to boil?

Thanks tons for your help here brother

yea i got 15 gal kegs.

cant say that i have timed it but didn't take long. Ill try and time it next time. Haven't done a 10 gal batch yet.

Commonwealth said:

It is not an SQ14, those have a 10" diameter, what I am inquiring about is the 6". But you are correct in that looks wise they appear to be identical. Yours is the high pressure 10" and I am curious about its little brother rated at about half the BTU's

Any help would be great, thanks......

Click to expand...

This isn't correct. The SQ-14 uses the same ring burner, but it's equipped with a variable (0-10 psi) regulator and the corresponding orifice. it is a six inch diameter burner like the one you are considering.and otherwise the cast burner itself is identical. I have one low pressure ring burner (Camp Chef)
and I also have the SQ-14. I use the Camp Chef for my direct fired mash tun and the higher pressure SQ-14 for my boil kettle. The low pressure burner is ideal for the mash tun as the flame is very controllable, especially at low settings. The SQ-14, being variable pressure could handle both tasks equally well, but I just so happened to purchase the Camp Chef first. Agri-supply sells the variable pressure regulators that will fit the burner you are looking at. IOW, it can be used as a high or low pressure burner with the proper orifice and regulator.

Here's a link to the regulator: http://www.agrisupply.com/product.asp?pn=64640

The 10" burner is the banjo style. Similar, but produces much more heat and uses gobs more gas. Overkill IMO and not a good choice for a mash tun, but would work OK for a boil kettle or HLT.

I use 1 under my MLT, no problems bringing 13gal to boil 13.2 gal Keggle..
for a boil pot, the small size might scorch threw a thin keg wall. haven't done a wort boil with it, only water.. never needs more than 7psi

I like many am in the planning phase of my brutus single tier and wondering about the 6" low pressure Banjo Burners. Anyone out there have any experience with them? I don't see much listed in the forums.

Click to expand...

I use the same 6" low pressure burner to heat my water and I am pleased with it. $16.00 including shipping and a nicer paint job



Cheers,
ClaudiusB

When I was looking for a new burner I went to my local Agri Supply Store and did some comparisons. When you buy a fryer with a 5 PSI regulator and then change the regulator to a 10PSI and also swap out the burner, you are better off buying this one instead. http://www.agrisupply.com/product.asp?pn=64482 I used it for the second time on Monday and brought 4 gallons of water to 180 from ambient temp in less than 10 minutes. To get 6.5 gallons to reach a full rolling boil after mashing was less than 10 minutes.

thanks for the vote of confidence gentlemen! It looks like you can get away with the smaller burners. I appreciate all of your input, happy brewing to all of you.

I use the smaller 6" burners and brew 5 gallon batches. HLT strike water usually is around 5 gallons and takes about 10-15 mins to get up to strike temp of 160F when outside temp is around 55F. I mash in a cooler then transfer to the boil kettle. The temp of the wort then is still around 160F and I begin a full flame under the boil kettle to get boiling. Since you don't start from ambient temp with anything but the HLT, I don't see why everyone is so over the top with burners.

I start the burner under the boil kettle as soon as I get done with the 1st runnings. I usually have to turn it off before I'm done with the sparge because the boil starts. I have no issues with these burners.

I agree.. I do the same thing. I think most of the burner sizing is relative to "bigger is always better" attitude which is fine if people want to go that way. I have been very surprised though that the small 6" banjo burner is not discussed more because it is a great burner from simmer to boil. Unless you're boiling more than 10 gallon batches, i don't see a need for anything bigger if you've got a couple extra minutes.
I would bet that the extra minutes required for the 6" burner still burnes less fuel than the larger burners in a shorter amount of time. You think?

Did anyone ever use these with natural gas?

Old Crow said:

I agree.. I do the same thing. I think most of the burner sizing is relative to "bigger is always better" attitude which is fine if people want to go that way. I have been very surprised though that the small 6" banjo burner is not discussed more because it is a great burner from simmer to boil. Unless you're boiling more than 10 gallon batches, i don't see a need for anything bigger if you've got a couple extra minutes.
I would bet that the extra minutes required for the 6" burner still burnes less fuel than the larger burners in a shorter amount of time. You think?

Click to expand...

I have two of the 6" burners. I run one at low pressure for my MT and one at high pressure (0-10 psi adjustable reg) for my BK. I freqently boil upwards of 13.5 gallons with the high pressure burner. It has plenty of power to use for 12 gallon batches and probably more than. I think they are perfectly sized for the typical home brew set up. I like that the flame control is very precise and especially so at low flame levels. What I would like to see someone come out with would be a 7.5" dia. ring burner similar to these. Might not be a whole lot of difference, but I'd like to give it a try.

Commonwealth said:

Amigos,

I like many am in the planning phase of my brutus single tier and wondering about the 6" low pressure Banjo Burners. Anyone out there have any experience with them? I don't see much listed in the forums.

They are rated to about 60K btu, so that means they likely burn more at 30K. They can be had for a mere $10 each from good ole agrisupply.

http://www.agrisupply.com/burner-cast-low-presure-multi-hole-/p/40282/ss/burner/

So if anyone has any input here, I am thinking about staying with Low pressure, and using these cheaper burners. Gentlemen I am all ears, let me know your thoughts, experiences etc.

Would there be that big a btu difference between this burner and a 10" Banjo run at low pressure?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Hey I have three of those burners, and I bought them from agri supply. They are 70,000 BTU. I built a test burner (see pic) and tested a 5 gallon boil. Tap water from my well is 56 F. Set it on this burner and lit it, adjusted it, and 40 minutes later had a roiling boil. These low pressure burners need the low pressure regulator and are more efficient in burning gas. They work well, my rig is to be used indoors, outside will need screens from wind. Here's the burner I built.

fl93 said:

Did anyone ever use these with natural gas?

Click to expand...

I'm in the process of building a brew stand and decided to go with these after reading beeboy's post, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/6-low-pressure-burners-227767/

I have some video of a test fire on my blog using 3/8 inch NG line. I'll be using a 1/2" line when it's all done.

I did the same as beeboy, drilled out the threads then tapped them to 1/4" npt and used a NG conversion valve from Williams Brewing.

BrewerinBR said:

These low pressure burners need the low pressure regulator and are more efficient in burning gas.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. That same burner can be run as a high pressure burner with the proper orifice and regulator. The popular Bayou Classic SQ-14 is a good example of this. It comes equipped with a high pressure orifice and an adjustable 0-10 psi regulator. I have one SQ-14 configured that way out of the box and my second burner is a Camp Chef low pressure burner that operates at less than 1 psi. Both work well, but the SQ-14 is capable of a much higher output than the Camp Chef. The burner castings appear to be identical on both. I would not put a lot of faith in the BTU ratings on any of these burners as they are often highly exaggerated. There are no regulations governing what the manufacturers can claim and IMO the exaggerated ratings are nothing more than a marketing ploy. Additionally, huge output is often more than wanted or needed in many cases. A good example of that is the 23 tip mutli-jet burners. That's why you often see guys plugging half of the ports to make them usable. You can only transfer so much heat through the kettle bottom and often running at very high flame levels uses a lot more fuel without a proportionate increase in heating performance. It's a diminishing return kind of thing. Run a big 10" high pressure banjo burner at wide open throttle and you will soon discover how inefficient that can be. You will certainly be able to bring a batch to a boil very fast, but you will deplete your propane tank even faster. It's not an even trade at all. I think the best of both worlds is the SQ-14 configuration with a high pressure orifice and the adjustable regulator. You can run it as a low pressure or high pressure buner which makes it much more versatile than the same burner running on low pressure gas. I like my low pressure Camp Chef, but the SQ-14 can be run at the same low level if desired by just dialing down the adjustable regulator. The only reason I have the low pressre set up is that it was the first one I bought and that was before I was aware of any of this.