High pressure propane question

[ChrisfromAbby]

I'm having trouble with my low pressure set up and wish to experiment with "high-pressure" (i.e. >11"WC) on my brew stand. I have 2 BG-14 burners, largely plumbed with 1/2" BIP, but I have 3 flexible aluminum connectors - one 3/4" from the LP regulator to the stand, and one to each burner from the BIP through the brass orifice.

Are the flexible appliance connectors able to handle high pressure propane (10 to 30 psi?) or do I need to get some HP hoses? If I need HP hoses, then I'll run my experiment on just one burner.

Chris

 

[ChrisfromAbby]

The first round of my experiment is a bust. I tried going with the only high pressure propane hose and regulator I have - an 18psi weed burner. It hissed loudly but only produced a tall yellow flame even on a nearly closed valve. If might have been the aperture as it looked rather large compared to the low pressure one is was replacing. I'll see if I can borrow a better one for the next test.

 

[day_trippr]

wrt to the piping, there's so little back-pressure provided by the orifice (and nearly nothing provided by a BG-14 burner casting) that you could likely get away with vinyl tubing between the regulator and the orifice (aside from the volatility factor, of course )

fwiw, my Blichmanns run on a 0-10psi regulator, and the stock flexible plumbing can't have an ID greater than 1/4". I run them in a single tier that's mostly 1/2" but has some 1/4" bits running into the orifices.

So, I'd have to believe you have the wrong orifice diameter for propane...

Cheers!

 

[ChrisfromAbby]

Well. I spent this fine sunny Sunday morning playing worth orifices!

I had two types to start. The Homebrew stuff combination valve / low pressure orifices that I've been using and some high pressure orifices that originally came with the BG14 burners. All of my tests were run on 11" WC propane.

The HP orifices have a diameter of 0.047" and the LP orifices have a 0.081" initially.

Using the straight up HP orifice. The flame was blue, but tiny. 1/4" only. Wimpy output.
I began stepping up by drilling the HP orifices and testing.
0.0625" Had better flame height and room to spare on the air intake.
0.067" was good at 1/3 open air intake
0.070" was better flame size but it was prone to going orange intermittently for no predictable reason.
0.073" was notably worse.
I never got close to the 3/32" that was suggested as a starting diameter!

I tried the soldering the orifice trick - this did not work for me very well. The solder tender to get ripped out of the brass fixture by the drill bit. I tried using Flux but no better. I was using silver solder and a propane torch, maybe lead solder would be better?

Anyhow. The LP orifices appear to be too large. I'm going to order in some of the HP combination valve/orifices anddrillthemoutto 0.067" and give that a go.

Next I'm going to pay with the wind screens to see if I can improve heart application to the bottom of the kettles.
Chris