coverting high pressure propane burner to ng

[kansasbrew]

I know this exists somewhere on the forum, but I can't find it.

I'm considering converting a BG-14 (a high pressure propane burner) to a natural gas burner. I don't know the pressure of my natural gas, but assume it is low pressure. I know the orifice will be quite a bit larger on the natural gas. Does that make up in part for the much higher BTU rating of propane?
More simply, if the propane burner is rated at 100,000 BTU at high pressure, am I going to get anything close to that on natural gas at low pressure? If it is half, can I still do a boil on a ten gallon batch in a reasonable time frame? (not doing ten currently, but that would be the high side of where I'd go).

 

[phoenixs4r]

I have the BG14 on natural gas in my garage. It does fine for my 10 gallon batch. Not sure how much slower it is than propane, as I never ran it with propane. I've also never timed it, but if I think about it, my brew days haven't gotten longer since I moved to the BG14 and started doing all grain batches. Maybe I'll time it this weekend.

And when I say ten gallon batch, I mean 14 gallon preboil. I usually end up with 6 I'm each fermenter. Drives me bonkers when I'm a half gallon shy of filling up my keg when I spent all that time brewing it and waiting for it.

 

[JuanMoore]

Yep, those burners run great on low pressure, either LP or NG. All you need to do is replace the orifice or drill it out. Depending on the pressure being supplied, you'll probably want the orifice to end up around 0.125"-0.161". You'll lose a few BTU, but not much.

 

[kansasbrew]

Thanks you guys. That was really helpful to me.

 

[wolfman_48442]

Yeah, I drilled out my propane fired BG-14 to 3/32" based on recommendations from kladue here on hbt. It works great.
I think JuanMoore has some great numbers for you, looking at this chart.