Size of flame on turkey Fryer

I am using a turkey fryer for the first time and I was wondering how high the flame was supposed to go. Right now, the flame is touching the bottom of my 30 qt ss pot.

It seems to be taking a long time to heat up, but I want to make sure that I wont do any damage to my pot.

I was also concerned the first time I used my new 22 qt pot, but after the boil I noticed that the sticker on the bottom hadn't even burned off!. I say let'r rip!

It took a full hour to come to a boil. Does that mean I could have cranked it up without having to worry about my pot? Thanks for any advice you could give.

Crank it up. I got mine to boil in 25 mintues at 59 F in the garage (door open).

Takes mine about 20 minutes - let 'er rip!

One thing to consider when heating or boiling wort is thermal loading. The faster you heat wort, the higher is the thermal loading and the more of the unpleasant (burnt) kind of melanoidens may be formed. That's why I tend to take it easy with the heating and boiling. I boil enough to stay between 10-15%/hr evaporation rate. Doing batch sparging I already start heating the wort as it comes out. Keeping the lid on (not during the boil though) helps too.

But many brewers just let 'er rip w/o experiencing any problems. I haven't had such a problem myself and are just citing the literature in this case. You can certainly go more than "barely touching the bottom". A good and reasonable heating rate would be 2-4 *F/min. When doing AG brewing this should get you from sparging to boil in 20-30 min. When doing extract you can get the water to a near boil at full speed before you add the extract.

Kai

Kaiser said:

One thing to consider when heating or boiling wort is thermal loading. The faster you heat wort, the higher is the thermal loading and the more of the unpleasant (burnt) kind of melanoidens may be formed.

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I would think that would be something you'd have to really consider if you had a powerful burner. Most turkey type burners won't boil 6 gallons or so in less than 20 minutes. I can't imagine that would be enough to cause any bad tastes, or is it??

rdwj said:

I can't imagine that would be enough to cause any bad tastes, or is it??

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I don't know, I just want to make peope aware that to many BTUs may not be a good thing.

Kai

Kaiser said:

I don't know, I just want to make peope aware that to many BTUs may not be a good thing.

Kai

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Jealous, Kai?

I think I wrecked of Honey Brown Ale (extract) 3 weeks ago. I let 'er rip during the middle 30 minutes of a 60 minute boil because I started with 6 1/2 gallons and didn't feel I was boiling down fast enough. With 15 minutes left, I realized I only had about 5 1/4 gallons in the kettle, so I turned back the burner and put the cover on. When I stopped the boil, I took the cover off and it smelled burned. I can't place the smell, but it was familiar. Maybe like burned bagels or something like that. I bottled tonight and it also tasted burned, but only vaguely. I was going to toss a coin to see if I should toss the batch, but I had already boiled my DME for priming, and had extra clean bottles. I will know in 3 weeks if it is drinkable or not.

The frustrating part was that it was my last extract batch before going to AG. I figured everything would go perfect, cause it was just an extract kit, right?

Kaiser said:

I don't know, I just want to make peope aware that to many BTUs may not be a good thing.

Kai

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It's not about the size of your flame, it's how long you can make it last before it boils.

Right Lorenae?

Cheesefood said:

It's not about the size of your flame, it's how long you can make it last before it boils.

Right Lorenae?

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I don't know- I've heard that bigger really IS better. And it sounds like the_bird's is bigger.

Lorena

Bigger is better. Bigger is better.

Now, as far as your burner it won't hurt to crank it up. The wort will heat up quickly at the bottom and you will get thermal currents that will keep it moving so it won't get a burnt taste. Once you get to boil, you can throttle it back & cruise.

Height of the flame matters. The hottest part of the flame is just above the blue cone. Too high and you'll get a cooler flame, soot on the bottom off the kettle and burn more gas than if you back it off.

Big is better but you've got to know how to control it baby!
Think of that gentle blonde beer, you don't want to burn it!

Look at this one from a guy in OZ.
http://www.grumpys.com.au/phorum/read.php?1,7020

Bet that throws a big flame.

Let er rip but keep stirring til it boils. Then back it down. No problem.

The only way you could damage your pot is if you had flame on it with no or very little liquid in the pot. If there's liquid in there, it'll suck the heat out of the metal before any damage can be done.

I was under the assumption that if theres water in the pot it would be hard to damage it?

LET R RIP! Even if you get soot on the bottom of the pot it easily comes off with a green scrubby.

- WW

boo boo said:

Look at this one from a guy in OZ.
http://www.grumpys.com.au/phorum/read.php?1,7020

Bet that throws a big flame.

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Sure hope he doesn't fire it up there in his kitchen...

Anyone remember learning to properly use a bunsen burner in high school science classes? I remember we learned to learn to adjust the flame so that it would be hot and efficient. There was a term for it, but it escapes me now.

Long and short: you want to try to get a relatively compact, flame that is as blue as possible. If you have orange your flame is not nearly as hot. Whe you get the right combination with your regulator and your air flow it will make a certain sound that you will recognize, too. Sort of like something cutting or tearing.

As far as the concept of "if there's water in it, the flame won't hurt the pot", it is actually possible to boil water over a flame in a paper cup! The water keeps the cup cool enough so the fire doesn't ignite the paper bottom of the cup.