Btu question

[bent]

How much do i need for a 50 gal boil?

 

[nefarious_1_]

whoops.

 

[nefarious_1_]

How much do i need for a 50 gal boil?

depends on the temperature of the water before it's heated and how fast you want it to boil. The cooler the water, the more btus required.

A btu is the amount of energy needed to raise one pound of water 1 degree fahrenheit. Taking this into consideration, you can see that water temperature has a direct effect on how many btus you need to boil.

That said, starting @ 45*F probably 100,000+ and it would take a while... Even more if you want it to boil faster.

 

[bent]

Cool thanks. I just found a formula online for it also.

 

[Catt22]

Keep in mind that the heat transfer efficiency from the burner to the kettle will be way less than 100%. The heat transfer efficiency gets worse as you increase the flame level of the burner.

 

[bent]

Well the biggest burner i can find is 230,000 btu. I'm gonna put a 5500 watt element in there too. Hopefully that should do it. Going by what i read earlier, i really need about 400,000 btu's, so hopefully the element will make up the difference. I read that at 100% efficiency you need approx. 1800 btu's to go from 70*f to a boil per gallon of h2o in an hour. So 4 times that is a more realistic figure.

Thanks

 

[Catt22]

You can get a jump on the boil if you begin heating the wort as soon as you begin the sparge (assuming you are flysparging). I've done this on large batches and reached the boiling point before the sparge was finished. Additionally, you probably will not be going from 70*F to boiling. The sparge run off should be in the vicinity of 150* or more as it comes out of the MT, so it's not nearly the stretch it would be from 70*F.

 

[tasteebrewer]

Take a look at these burners... up to 880000 btu...

http://www.tejassmokers.com/newproducts_page6.htm

 

[bent]

I need to heat mash, sparge, and boil. So we are talkin 50 to 170 twice and then 150 to boil.