Burner choices... New brew stand!

[brick_haus]

I know...not another burner thread! I read and read about this and think I made a good decision, just looking for someone that can reasonable desuade me from my choice.
I had a buddy of mine make a copy of the Brewers Hardware brew stand for me out of Stainless tubing but mine was upsized to accomodate my brewery. I went with the open back design as I thought is was a good idea, but I may have been wrong? Seems that alot of heat escapes out the back... Any opinions/experience here???

Now to the burner. I installed the burners from my Blichman floor burners into the stand and converted them to NG. I had a chance to try i t out last weekend and was a little dissapointed with the boil rate. Boiled pretty good at first, then it was reduced to a pretty slow roller wide open throttle. I would like a little more heat, but am worried about the heat escaping through the back cutouts on the stand.This is scorching hot on the back side of the kettle.
This slow roller was a 15.5 gallon boil with 2 gallon boil off over a 90 minute boil. This left me with more wort (lower SG) than I intended (I normally got 3-3.5 gallons boil off). I'm looking to kick up the boil a notch because I now have purchased the required equipment to start brewing 1/2 bbl batches.

The Blichmann burner (BG14?) aint cutting it and I think I should go with the 23 tip Jet Burner. The 32 tip seems too big.

What say you?

 

[JonW]

Switching from propane to NG is going to lose a lot of BTU's. What size supply line are you using for the NG? One of the smaller BBQ lines from HD or Lowes usually isn't going to cut it. You may also want to check what your NG pressure is. If you're on the low end of the acceptable limit, you might want to increase the pressure at your meter. (Research what your household equipment will support before adjusting it).

The heat MUST escape somewhere. That is one of the biggest problems people have with these burners when they build their own rig is that they don't design them to allow enough air to flow through there. The drop-back design like the Brewers Hardware stands simply allows the spent gas to exit the back away from your valves and plumbing so it keeps everything cool up front. BH is currently making me a stand to use with their 30G kettles that will use the BG14 burners and the drop-back style on natural gas.

The wok jet burners do work good, but they are very loud. The BG14 is silent in comparison. I will be looking forward to switching to the BG14 style burners for my new build.

 

[brick_haus]

I've got a 3/4" supply line going into the rear lower lateral support, which is capped off before assembled. This lateral is a 2" gas log with 3 ea. 1/2" male nipples cut in. Then I have 3/8x24" flex lines to the burners. I'll try larger lines next time. Don't know the pressure, just assume it's ~11" WC. Probably should check.

 

[JonW]

Your lines sound sufficient. A 3/4" supply line is plenty and individual 3/8" to the burners is plenty also.

You might want to measure how many inches water column you have.

 

[brick_haus]

Yea thanks. I have a digital manometer that I use at work. I'll borrow it and check.