Need Help with my Burners and sculpture

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Yambor44

Yambor44

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Okay, I've been reading a lot on the forum here and bought and installed some natural gas (NG) burners on a sculpture I bought used about 6 months ago. With some help from a local fellow brewer, I've got it to this point but need some help tweaking it. The burners run great but seem to have about half blue and half orange flames (best way I can describe it).

Also, the heat it puts out around the kettles is too much. I do not have any heat shields around the outside edges yet, this was a test run. My BK (lower kettle far right) is 6.5 inches from the center tips to the center of the BK and 7 inches from the outside tips to the outside of the BK. The HLT is 7.5 inches from center to center and 8 inches from outside to outside. It took 50 minutes at not quite half valve to reach 170 degrees on the BK. Didn't take it to boil as I want to get some input from you all before trying it again.

I have some sheet metal I purchased to cut for the wind shields. would it help to cut some of this to cover in the corner gaps between the kettles and the frame? What can I do if anything to get a bluer flame? Any other pointers (even if criticism) would be much appreciated.

Rob

Click on thumbnails for larger pic







 
It looks like you ran 1/2" black iron for the main andd branched off 2 3/4" then back to 1/2" is this correct?
 
Yambor44 said:
Okay, I've been reading a lot on the forum here and bought and installed some natural gas (NG) burners on a sculpture I bought used about 6 months ago. With some help from a local fellow brewer, I've got it to this point but need some help tweaking it. The burners run great but seem to have about half blue and half orange flames (best way I can describe it).

Also, the heat it puts out around the kettles is too much. I do not have any heat shields around the outside edges yet, this was a test run. My BK (lower kettle far right) is 6.5 inches from the center tips to the center of the BK and 7 inches from the outside tips to the outside of the BK. The HLT is 7.5 inches from center to center and 8 inches from outside to outside. It took 50 minutes at not quite half valve to reach 170 degrees on the BK. Didn't take it to boil as I want to get some input from you all before trying it again.

I have some sheet metal I purchased to cut for the wind shields. would it help to cut some of this to cover in the corner gaps between the kettles and the frame? What can I do if anything to get a bluer flame? Any other pointers (even if criticism) would be much appreciated.

Rob

Click on thumbnails for larger pic







Click to expand...

I have the same burner, but LP instead of natural gas. I have mine mounted so that the tip of the burner is about 4" below the bottom of the burner.

Picasa Web Albums - Chris - Brew Stand Bu...

I do also have gussets in the corners to keep the flames from coming up the sides of the kettle. I'm sure it helps keep the heat focused on the bottom of the kettle, but I don't really know how much of a difference it makes.

I would try raising up the burner at least a couple of inches. It should also help a bit with the heat on the pump, since the burner will be further away from it.
 
cdburg said:
I have the same burner, but LP instead of natural gas. I have mine mounted so that the tip of the burner is about 4" below the bottom of the burner.

Picasa Web Albums - Chris - Brew Stand Bu...

I do also have gussets in the corners to keep the flames from coming up the sides of the kettle. I'm sure it helps keep the heat focused on the bottom of the kettle, but I don't really know how much of a difference it makes.

I would try raising up the burner at least a couple of inches. It should also help a bit with the heat on the pump, since the burner will be further away from it.
Click to expand...


Good points but I am afraid if I raise the burner up anymore I won't be able to open the gas valve enough to allow a proper flame. I have read on here somewhere where some are anywhere from 6 tp 16inches with the NG burners.
 
I have the same burners running on LP as well. Like a lot of people, I ended up plugging about 1/3 of the tips. The problem I ran into was the way the tips work, you need a certain minimum amount of gas flow past the air intakes to make a good blue flame. With that many tips, it ends up being alot of gas and I felt it was too much heat. I also placed my kettles 5" from the burner tips.

I'd recommend plugging a few of the tips and see if that helps.
 
cdburg said:
I have the same burner, but LP instead of natural gas. I have mine mounted so that the tip of the burner is about 4" below the bottom of the burner.

Picasa Web Albums - Chris - Brew Stand Bu...

I do also have gussets in the corners to keep the flames from coming up the sides of the kettle. I'm sure it helps keep the heat focused on the bottom of the kettle, but I don't really know how much of a difference it makes.

I would try raising up the burner at least a couple of inches. It should also help a bit with the heat on the pump, since the burner will be further away from it.
Click to expand...


I was looking at your build a while back, followed every step. VERY nice!!
 
I don't know man, those burners run a little too hot for cardboard heat shields.

:drunk: you had to see that coming.

Yeah, that should work ok. You definitely need that 1" gap around the top for venting. You'll get a huge pillow of CO under the keg skirt if you don't let it vent.
 
With a tight shield at the top you would have the gas flow volume reversed against the burners that would self extinguish the burner flame. That would add a tremendous amout of heat reflected back into the burners. On my 9" round cast iron old hot water heater burners they worked best with a shield from the bottom of the burners to 1 1/2" before the bottom of the keggles skirt. Any flames licking past the skirt outwards was just too much heat applied, a hazard you only could see at night besides wasted energy heating the world. Cut back so the flame fanned out fully covering the bottom until it hit the skirt at the kegs bottom was the most efficient for heating.
These burners from the Hoyt Hot Water Company plumbing supply two miles from home, I had all three burners the same. All this was NG.
 
Thanks guys. I am a little confused still on this. I finally found my burners:

JET BURNER, CASTIRON, 8" NAT. GAS : Restaurant Equipment and Supplies - Restaurant equipment, Restaurant Supplies, Foodservice Supplies

20 tip, NG, 150,000 BTU.

I do not have a problem with the flames coming around the sides of the kettles.

Are you saying the shield on the top of the frame just beneath the kettle is too much? I do have a gap in the mock up at the top.

I am running 25 foot of 1/2" "hypothetical" hose from my NG supply at the meter. This runs to what I am assuming are 1/2" valves as they screw directly onto 1/2" pipe.

I even get too much heat under the burners where my March pump sits. I want to be able to keep the pump as well as my homemade CF chiller under the kettles as most do for convenience.

I can take and post any pictures you may need for reference or clarification.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer me and please excuse my ignorance on a lot of this stuff if you have already answered my concerns. I am a bug man by trade and nowhere near an engineer!! :eek: :D
 
I was having melting issues with my hoses too until I got the heavy-wall silicone tubing. One thing you might want to do, something I plan to also, is to test how much pressure you actually get out of your hose. A lot of folks have suggested that a regulator is required to get these things to burn well. For me, it's hit or miss on getting a good burn. I think my pressure might be too high because some tips self-extinguish.
 
Yambor, I am working on switching my two tier over to NG too, looks like you have a nice setup. I don't have much experience with NG burners, but it looks like you need to move them up closer to your keggles. This should negate the need for heat shields. As far as the pump goes, hang a ceramic tile above it and that will keep all the heat away. Good luck.
 
I took a couple of short videos of it running last night but I'm having trouble getting them up on you tube. As soon as I do I will post them here.

I spoke to a friend and fellow brewer for some time last night on the phone and he suggested 2 things to start with based on my pictures and description here.

1. Raise the burners so the first 3 inches of the flame are getting a good lay on the bottom of the kettle. This would put it in the area of 5 inches i am guessing and will start there.

2. Use some of that sheet metal duct work that you wrap into a circle and it connects to itself. Then build a brace to hook it to the frame kind of like the hop bag with the threaded rods. Keep the upper half of the jets clear and the rest down below to create a funnel for the jets to suck the air from as they get their air from below.

I will keep you posted when I get all of this done.

Rob
 
Bobby_M said:
A lot of folks have suggested that a regulator is required to get these things to burn well. For me, it's hit or miss on getting a good burn. I think my pressure might be too high because some tips self-extinguish.
Click to expand...

I experimented with an appliance regulator for a few batches, but still couldn't get my 23 tip burners to run cleanly and reliably, or with any kind of adjustability. Finally, I just gave up on them...got tired of scrubbing soot off my kettle. :(

To the OP, keep us posted on your progress. Love the sculpture, looks great!
 
I moved my whole burner setup 3 inches upwards. Pretty easy really for that part.

I picked up a couple of shrouds/ducts tonight at Lowes. I think I am ruining my bits trying to drill thru the corners of this bed frame. Took me a while on the second corner as it was "double walled".

I need to try and get another frame piece welded on so I can attach a 3rd carriage bolt unless someone here has another idea. I'm wore out just from drilling 2 little 3/8's holes. Need to find some real drill bits i guess. These are from Sear though, will they take em back and trade em out like their tools??? :) The bolts are 3/8 by 8 inches. A little long but they will do I for now.



This is what it looks like now with only two bolts holding it in place.


This is about where it should sit when I get the 3rd bolt in place.


A frontal view



Anyone have any thoughts or ideas about securing the ring? The upper burner should be fine as it has a frame on each corner.
 

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