BTUs for Pot Size

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Do you need it to get to boil? It probably will but will take awhile. If you only need to get to 170ish then you should be fine but again it will take a bit of time.
 
Tue Jan 22, 2013 8:14 pm
Re: BTU Burner for size of HLT
So here's what I'm thinking.

1 BTU heats 1 pound of water 1 Degree

I have 550 pounds of water that I need to heat from 40 degrees F to 208'Degrees F
Water boils at 208 degrees F at my elevation.

168 Degrees X 550 pounds= 92400 BTUs

So if my burner (66000 BTUs) runs for 1.5 hours I should have boiling water......but wait....how efficient is my pot...well if Blichmann pots are as good as they are expensive I should get to boiling by farting near the pot.

Some how I don't think that will happen...so lets say I get 50 percent of the heat in the water...is it really going to take three hour to boil my water?????
 
At some point, the heat gained will equal the heat lost. At 66000 BTU, this may happen before reaching 208 degrees. I have a 185000 btu burner, and for my 52 gallons, it takes me a good 90 minutes to go from 150ish to boiling, and its not even a real vigorous boil. I don't think 66000 BTUs will get you there. I hope I am wrong though.
 
At some point, the heat gained will equal the heat lost. At 66000 BTU, this may happen before reaching 208 degrees. I have a 185000 btu burner, and for my 52 gallons, it takes me a good 90 minutes to go from 150ish to boiling, and its not even a real vigorous boil. I don't think 66000 BTUs will get you there. I hope I am wrong though.

Wow at that rate I will have to fire up the burner on Wednesday to brew on Sunday!

I am thinking.....I do that sometimes...apparently twice in one thread.....that a burner putting out 185000 BTUs is so crazy that 90 percent of that heat must be going around that pot and not heating the water....do the math...1BTU heats one pound of water 1 degree.

You should be raising that water temp 335 degrees in one hour.

Your raising it 40 degrees per hour......15 percent efficient!
 
At some point, the heat gained will equal the heat lost. At 66000 BTU, this may happen before reaching 208 degrees. I have a 185000 btu burner, and for my 52 gallons, it takes me a good 90 minutes to go from 150ish to boiling, and its not even a real vigorous boil. I don't think 66000 BTUs will get you there. I hope I am wrong though.

Yes...heat gained equals heat lost at boil!
 
....do the math...1BTU heats one pound of water 1 degree.

You should be raising that water temp 335 degrees in one hour.

In a perfect world, yes. However, there is abundant heat loss through the sides of the kettle. If I could trap all of the heat I put into it, then yes, it would boil quicker. When you lose that much heat through the sides of the kettle, it takes a lot longer. I'm just telling you my experience. Take it for what it's worth.
 
Man... I have a 200,000 BTU burner for my 15 gallon kettle. There is very little wait time coming up to a boil. You're going to lose energy, go big and save yourself a lot of headaches.
 
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