AG guys: how many BTUs is your burner?

[Walker]

I'm going AG soon, and I'm making up my christmas list. I want to make sure I specify the proper BTU rating, or I could end up with something too weak for brewing because someone in my family might find something on sale and get it for me.

Anyway.... please pick the proper voting option and post any relevant comments. I've searched the forums, and have found suggestions as low as 55k BTU and as high as 220k BTU. I want to see everyone's opinion in a poll form to know what I can get away with asking for.

I would like to be able to get a rolling boil going on 8 gallons without having to sit around all day.

thanks, people..

-walker

edit: yes, I realize I put "BYU" in the first option, but I can't change it at this point.

 

[user 574]

Wish I knew on mine. I got this Bayou classic but it doesn't say what BTU it is anywhere... Not a blow torch but not bad either. Takes me about 15 minutes to go from 80 to 165 for 8 gl of HLT water.

 

[Walker]

Wish I knew on mine. I got this Bayou classic but it doesn't say what BTU it is anywhere... Not a blow torch but not bad either. Takes me about 15 minutes to go from 80 to 165 for 8 gl of HLT water.

I searched google for the model number "BTU rating of 3066A" and found this page:

http://www.bizrate.com/deepfryers/pid359236512/

That site claims your burner is 55k BTU.

-walker

 

[Glibbidy]

Mine is 170,000 BTU's and will get 8.75 gallons H20 from 65 to 160-165 degrees in under 18 minutes. Probably more like 15, but I never timed it.
It's one of the King Kookers.

http://www.crosby-baker.com/index_files/Page1044.htm

Adequate ventilation required!

 

[olllllo]

I am not AG yet, but bought this one for futureproofedness.

http://www.bayouclassicdepot.com/index.php?target=products&product_id=1610

210,000 BTUs

When the description alluded to 30 gal boils, I fell over.

ETA: I also enjoy using it with a huge wok for outdoor stir frys.

 

[Sephro]

Make a heatstick! I just did my first 2 batches last weekend with one.. I don't know how I made it without it! Amazing! Mine is a 2000watt...

 

[user 574]

I searched google for the model number "BTU rating of 3066A" and found this page:

http://www.bizrate.com/deepfryers/pid359236512/

That site claims your burner is 55k BTU.

-walker

Thanks - I'll have to look at the box to make sure that was my model # and re-google. My interest in my current BTU has been "eh" as I work towards my metal three tier I planned on buying these.

 

[Axegod]

When I first tried homebrew, the HBS fella (I called him BeerBuddy)
actually ordered a hot air balloon burner for his AG process.
I thought that was pretty cool.

 

[Brewpastor]

I use propane jet burners, and they rock. Big BTU's, little money. We have a winner!

 

[Dude]

I am not AG yet, but bought this one for futureproofedness.

http://www.bayouclassicdepot.com/index.php?target=products&product_id=1610

210,000 BTUs

When the description alluded to 30 gal boils, I fell over.

ETA: I also enjoy using it with a huge wok for outdoor stir frys.

Walker, I'd TOTALLY recommend that burner. It is quiet as hell and kicks serious butt. Hence the name.

I think SwAMi actually has the same burner but with a different stand, hopefully he can chime in with the name of his model. He got it at Home Depot I believe. The thing is awesome and I will upgrade to them eventually. Worth every penny IMHO.

 

[Brewpastor]

The other thing to consider is flame pattern. I need a huge single flame for my configutration. My burners came with deflecters, but I cut them off because I didn't need them. And they are LOUD.

Other (most) set-ups benefit from the wider pattern provided by the unit Dude shows.

I am not certain, but I think one needs to be careful buying the high pressure burners sold alone on ebay because they are not set up with an orifice for the LP.

 

[ajf]

Mine is probably the same as glibbidy's. It's relatively quiet produces less soot, and is much more efficient (compared to my old jet burner).

-a.

 

[D*Bo]

My interest in my current BTU has been "eh" as I work towards my metal three tier I planned on buying these.

Sweet. I've got one of those Kingcookers. Large round base(didn't see it on the site) that I can jump on without it flexing. I think it's only 60,000 BTU. I'm definately going to pick up one of those 170 units and swap it.

 

[david_42]

I have a cast iron turkey burner (55K) that I'm replacing with a Hurricane burner (60K), not much more heat but a better flame pattern.

 

[Ivan Lendl]

im not sure what mine is. It works though, i think its the sq-40 (bayou classic)

 

[Dude]

im not sure what mine is. It works though, i think its the sq-40 (bayou classic)

That is the one SwAMi has I believe. The thing is quiet as heck and really puts out some heat.

 

[RichBrewer]

Here's my burners. For the life of me I can't remember the BTUs on either of them. I do know that the one on the left which is ten years old heats quicker than the plated one that came with my turkey fryer.
Speaking of turkey fryers... once you fry a turkey it becomes a major pain to clean! I'll never do that again!

 

[Kaiser]

One thing to keep in mind is, that bigger is not better when it comes to a burner for boiling wort. You don't want to boil it to vigerously as this will create to much thermal loading on the wort and it will litteraly burn your wort. According to Fix, you should get a boil-off rate between 8 and 12%. This is something almost any turkey fryer burner should be able to do for 5 and 10 gal batches.

Kai

 

[Beer Snob]

HA! I use the stove in my humble kitchen and it's electric Well... I've only sucessfully done this method once so far so "luck" is certainly within the realm of possibilities

Well that's my humble answer at any rate. The less then humble one is luck had nothing to do with it :rockin:

 

[Desert_Sky]

ouch, 17 bucks to ship that here. SwAMi got his at home depot? Im going to go check there.

 

[Beer Snob]

Well you can certainly use one of these burners..... they certainly would seperate the men from the boys.....



But no matter how Kick-A$$ you think your brewpot is, using one of these will make a puddle out of your brewpot in the middle of your driveway with you standing there looking stupid muttering "Ah... sh*t!" Oh and if you don't want to be badly sun burned and blinded I would strongly recommend reading up on the safety equipment needed for the last 2 in the picture



Just wanted to place a line here to make sure everyone understood this to be a joke. These beuties are used for knifemaking, blacksmithing and the last two foundary operations. Any interested parties can look more here:
http://www.hybridburners.com/
I started to get involved with knife making and have a forge mostly built actually... need a place of my own... someday....

 

[clayof2day]

I'm going AG soon, and I'm making up my christmas list. [/I]

I find it hard to believe that nobody has commented on this yet!! I thought Walker was dead-set on mini-mash until he died! Another comes to the dark side, I love it.

For the record I also have one of the home depot burners (Bayou Classic, 55K BTU) and have been really happy with it. I have the round one, however, and it has been suggested that if you see yourself boiling with a keggle in the future make sure to get one of the square ones as it will support it much better.

 

[Walker]

I find it hard to believe that nobody has commented on this yet!! I thought Walker was dead-set on mini-mash until he died! Another comes to the dark side, I love it.

Not true. I've wanted to go AG for some time, but being a very involved father of a 3.5 year old and a 1.5 year old , I didn't think I had the time to do AG batches. (I am a "midnight oil" brewer, usually working between 9pm and 1am on brew day after the kids are in bed.)

However, the illustrious Baron von BeeGee enlightened me on the speed of batch sparging, and informed me that I could do an AG batch-sparge brew in a matter of 4 hours.

I can do 4 hours starting at 9pm.. no sweat.

-walker

 

[cweston]

However, the illustrious Baron von BeeGee enlightened me on the speed of batch sparging, and informed me that I could do an AG batch-sparge brew in a matter of 4 hours.

I can do 4 hours starting at 9pm.. no sweat.

A couple comments:

4 hours is your absolute minimum, I'd say. With a single infusion 60 minute mash, and a 60 minute boil, 4 hours is achievable, depending on how fast your burner boils water/wort, how fast you can drain your kettle, how you aerate, etc. You'll never do it in less than four hours (set up to clean up), and it could easily be more like 5-6.

My burner is a King Kooker: I don't remember the BTUs (I got it long before I started brewing), but it rocks. I boils liquid quickly and, as Kai mentioned, I have to turn it down quite a bit for the actual wort boil: it can easily boil over 7 gallons of wort even in my 15.5 gal keggle if I don't get it adjusted quickly.

 

[Walker]

4 hours is your absolute minimum, I'd say. With a single infusion 60 minute mash, and a 60 minute boil, 4 hours is achievable, depending on how fast your burner boils water/wort, how fast you can drain your kettle, how you aerate, etc. You'll never do it in less than four hours (set up to clean up), and it could easily be more like 5-6.

I realize this, and I probably should have mentioned that I plan overlap some of my "Dad Time" with the brewing. My son loves to help me with things where he can (sanitizing bottles, measuring grains/hops/water), so I can heat up the mash water while we are eating dinner, and he can help me mash-in before the bed-time ritual begins.

I can let the mash go and start the sparge water slowly heating while we do the bath, story, songs, tucking-in thing. Then, after the kids are asleep, I can come back downstairs and go almost immediately to sparge and boil.

I've done something similar on my last few brews, letting my son help me with my grain steeping before he goes to bed. That cut over an hour of time off of my night, because I am ready to start my boil as soon as he's asleep.

As for cleaning up... this is where SWMBO contributes in our brewery. She has no problem doing a full clean-up the morning after I brew. I just have to do a quick rinsing of the gear, start a soak of things in soapy water, and wipe up any big sticky spots. She does the full-blown clean up (scrubbing, mopping, packing up the gear and putting it back into storage, etc) the next day.

-walker

 

[cweston]

As for cleaning up... this is where SWMBO contributes in our brewery. She has no problem doing a full clean-up the morning after I brew. I just have to do a quick rinsing of the gear, start a soak of things in soapy water, and wipe up any big sticky spots. She does the full-blown clean up (scrubbing, mopping, packing up the gear and putting it back into storage, etc) the next day.

Dang, you are one lucky man.

 

[Walker]

Dang, you are one lucky man.

We see this as "fair".

We both eat food. She cooks the food, and I do the dishes.
We both drink beer. I cook the beer, and she does the dishes.

I'm probably getting the short end of the stick here, to be honest. I do her dishes 5 or 6 nights of the week. She does my dishes a couple times a month. Plus.. I think she dirties more pots, pans, and utensils making dinner than I do making beer.

-walker

 

[cweston]

We see this as "fair".

We both eat food. She cooks the food, and I do the dishes.
We both drink beer. I cook the beer, and she does the dishes.

I'm probably getting the short end of the stick here, to be honest. I do her dishes 5 or 6 nights of the week. She does my dishes a couple times a month. Plus.. I think she dirties more pots, pans, and utensils making dinner than I do making beer.

-walker

Trust me, you're lucky.

My wife has many wonderful qualities, but she's just not very domestic. (She was the only girl in a large family with very traditional gender roles, so I think it's a form a rebellion.)

I do 100% of the cooking, meal planning and grocery shopping. This is by far the single most taxing day-to-day household labor reponsibility (outside of caring for babies and the like), so unless you're doing everything else...

I also do more than half of the vacuuming and laundry, and probably half the dishes/kitchen cleanup. My wife does do most of the yard work, except the mowing and snow shoveling.

She never helps with brewing or cleanup--in fact, she avoids it like the plague, which is a little odd since she bought me the initial gear that got me started as a Christmas present. But she also doesn't really drink the beer, either.

 

[Walker]

Trust me, you're lucky.

My wife has many wonderful qualities, but she's just not very domestic. (She was the only girl in a large family with very traditional gender roles, so I think it's a form a rebellion.)

I do 100% of the cooking, meal planning and grocery shopping. This is by far the single most taxing day-to-day household labor reponsibility (outside of caring for babies and the like), so unless you're doing everything else...

I also do more than half of the vacuuming and laundry, and probably half the dishes/kitchen cleanup. My wife does do most of the yard work, except the mowing and snow shoveling.

She never helps with brewing or cleanup--in fact, she avoids it like the plague, which is a little odd since she bought me the initial gear that got me started as a Christmas present. But she also doesn't really drink the beer, either.

I think this is a matter of perspective. You think I'm lucky, but I think you are just unlucky.

-walker

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

It can be done in 4hrs...I've done it. Especially if you're talking about a 60 minute boil and have the ability to rapidly cool wort. A lot does depend on your burner. I can get 7.5g of wort boiling in under 15 minutes with my burner, while other people have cited longer times with their burners. Also, there's not that much downtime trying to do it in 4hrs...you're doing things during the mash and during the boil so it's not as relaxing as just kicking back, but it can be done.

OTOH, when I'm not constrained by time AG brewing offers ample periods of time to knock out some honey-do's or other things such as during the mash or during the boil/cooling.

 

[Rhoobarb]

Mine is 170,000 BTUs; got it at Farm & Fleet. If I had to do it over again, I'd look for one with a shorter, more stable frame, like some of the ones others have shown earlier. But at the time, I was chompin' at the bit to plunge into AG!

I like to eyeball/balance the pot on mine so that it's centered on top of the 'ring'. It's not a big deal and I don't think it would ever tip over b/c it's actually pretty sturdy.

Here it is:

Works lke a charm!

 

[Chairman Cheyco]

Mine's 60000 and it boils quite rapidly. I'd get a bigger one if I was at a lower altitude though. Boiling is easy at 3700ft.

 

[SwAMi75]

Here's mine: http://www.bayouclassicdepot.com/index.php?target=products&product_id=1616

Rated at 150K BTU, but it uses a 10psi regulator. It's much quieter than my old 170K, which used a 20psi reg, was loud as hell and used loads of propane. This one is quiet and much more efficient. It seems to heat just as quickly, if not quicker.

I'd be afraid of that Bayou Classic 210K....it uses a 30psi reg. I bet that thing is thirsty and loud!