very sooty burner.

i know this has been talked about but several searches haven't helped much.

i have a mastercraft 185kBTU burner from my LHBS. From day 1 this thing has been a dirty bird. very yellow flame, tons of soot. no bueno. brought it back to LHBS last week and he swapped out the regulator for a new one from another unit. same deal.

the problem is turning it down. if i leave the regulator cranked and open the air valve up it will shoot nice blue flames, great for getting up to boil. the problem is holding the boil. i now turn the regulator down, still leave the air wide open, and the flame goes orange/yellow and by the end of the boil i have soot running up the sides of my kettle.

some how i'm getting way to much fuel. i've taken the screws off the venturi which gave me another 25% of the air inlet open and it's still awful.

bought new, never modified, always had this issue, regulator w/line swapped out..

burner in question: http://shop.lancasterhomebrew.com/185000-BTU-Burner-185000burner.htm

yes my LHBS is Lancaster HomeBrew Supply

 

I had the same problem with my initial burner - the air inlet just was not big enough to work and was coating my pot with soot.

After a few batches I got sick of it and purchased this replacement burner:

Amazon.com- Bayou Classic BG-10

It swapped right in with my regulator and bolted direct onto my frame with no issues - and fromt hat point on - no more soot.

In comparing my old burner and my new burner - the BG-10 had at least twice as much surface area on the air inlet and that seemed to make all the difference. It also used half as much gas (all that soot is simply improperly combusted fuel). For $15.99 it paid for itself pretty quickly

 

man, for the money i'm spending in magic erasers, deck cleaner and resolve carpet cleaner $15.99 is the bargain of the century.

the regulator i have is 30psi. the replacement bayou classic regulator is 10psi. am i alright running that burner with what i have now?

 

Anyone?

 

Yellow flame can be caused by either too much air, or not enough.

If it burns great at full throttle, but not when you lower the pressure, then you might want to try slowly closing the venturi after you throttle down.

Alternatively, you can install a needle valve at the burner. That way it's then same pressure, just less volume.