Hurricane Burner (enough BTU's?)

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
D

dozer4412

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2009
Messages
55
Reaction score
0
Location
Madison WI
A number of Brutus 10 builds rather than using jet burners have went with the Hurricane Burners from NB. While NB doesn't list the BTUs on this burner I think many have said it's 60,000. I'm wondering from the people out there using Hurricane Burners if it meets your needs? How long does it take you to get to strike temp for 5 and 10 gallon batches? How long to get to a boil after sparge? Do you wish you would have went with a burner with more BTU’s?

I’ve also read a number of people are using 32 tip jet burners and plugging up a number of the jets. Why do this and not just get the 20 or 10 tip jet burners? I’ve read, and there is some debate on this, that jet burners are harder to control the flame on because each jet has its own oxygen intake. Anyway I’m no gas burner expert and I’m just looking for some advice from both sides on what burner to go with.

I’m planning to go low pressure propane for portability and right now am kind of hung up between the following burners.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewi...rner-restrictor-plate-and-screw-no-stand.html

http://www.tejassmokers.com/newproducts_page6.htm 6” or 8”
 
I could be wrong on this but I think there are alot of problems with those jet burners. I have also heard alot of good press on the Hurricane burners.
 
Never timed the Hurricane as I am not usually in any kind of rush. Always lots to do in between steps. It produces a nice blue short flame that covers much of the bottom surface area of the Keggle. The guy I spoke with @ Hurricane told me that many people contact him about getting giant flames out of the Hurricane as opposed to the short blue flame that it gives out. You could tinker with orifice sizes to get more heat and less efficiency but I highly recommend it as is. (have only use it with NG so far although I have the regulator & valve for propane). I also use it to bake pizza on my brew stand so it is a much used piece of equipment!!!
 
I do ten gallon boils all the time and have never had the hurricane over 3/4 open on the regulator...it has more than enough BTUs.
 
samc said:
Never timed the Hurricane as I am not usually in any kind of rush. Always lots to do in between steps. It produces a nice blue short flame that covers much of the bottom surface area of the Keggle. The guy I spoke with @ Hurricane told me that many people contact him about getting giant flames out of the Hurricane as opposed to the short blue flame that it gives out. You could tinker with orifice sizes to get more heat and less efficiency but I highly recommend it as is. (have only use it with NG so far although I have the regulator & valve for propane). I also use it to bake pizza on my brew stand so it is a much used piece of equipment!!!
Click to expand...

Sam,

What is the distance between the keggle and the burner that you use for your hurricane burners? I use natural gas like you and am switching to the natural gas version of hurricane burner also. I have a stand from Sabco and it came with crappy high pressure burners with orifices for natural gas and they are the sootiest pieces of chit I have ever seen.
 
I haven't used either, but after the reading I've done on both I plan to go with the Hurricane burners as soon as I can find some in stock. Does anyone else besides Northern sell the burners and have them in stock right now? Northern is out of stock and Hurricane is out of stock too (plus they wont sell to the public).
 
I have both of these. I have the 32 jet burner. the bajo/huricanne burner is what you want. the 32 is EXTREME OVER KILL and will cause major problems for you.
I bought the bajo first to heat 55 gallons of water. It wouldnt do it. It got it to 170 and thats it. It took i think an hour and 2 bottles of propane to do it. Mind you, this is 55 gallons of water that is a LOT. The 32 jet burner boiled that water in 25 minutes!!!
DO not get the 32 jet burner and secound of all the price for it is way to high. I paid like 114 for my 32 jet burner from bbq guys.
my 2 cents hope it helps
 
Sawdustguy said:
Sam,

What is the distance between the keggle and the burner that you use for your hurricane burners? I use natural gas like you and am switching to the natural gas version of hurricane burner also. I have a stand from Sabco and it came with crappy high pressure burners with orifices for natural gas and they are the sootiest pieces of chit I have ever seen.
Click to expand...

2.75" from top of burner to frame top. Was supposed to be adjustable but the crap welder screwed it up and I did not feel like making swiss cheese of the burner mounts. With Keggles I would ideally put it closer to the bottom of the keggle. Second generation stand will fix all that someday.
 
Thanks for the info guys, I'd been leaning toward the Hurricane Burners and now this just confirms it.
 
You can raise the burner until the light blue center of the flame is within a 1/2" of the bottom of the keg, closer and the flame leaves soot on keg and lots of carbon monoxide in combustion byproducts. Try a adding a couple holes in the keg skirt to let combustion gases get away from bottom and you will find it takes a lot less flame to get job done. Here is a shot of home built 12" burner in operation under vented keg http://picasaweb.google.com/kevin.ladue/BoilKettle#5225673202891787298.
 
Cold_Steel said:
I have both of these. I have the 32 jet burner. the bajo/huricanne burner is what you want. the 32 is EXTREME OVER KILL and will cause major problems for you.
I bought the bajo first to heat 55 gallons of water. It wouldnt do it. It got it to 170 and thats it. It took i think an hour and 2 bottles of propane to do it. Mind you, this is 55 gallons of water that is a LOT. The 32 jet burner boiled that water in 25 minutes!!!
DO not get the 32 jet burner and secound of all the price for it is way to high. I paid like 114 for my 32 jet burner from bbq guys.
my 2 cents hope it helps
Click to expand...

Just curious, do you know how much propane it took for the 32-tip jet burner to boil that water?
 
P-Lay said:
Just curious, do you know how much propane it took for the 32-tip jet burner to boil that water?
Click to expand...

Enough to get an 85 lbs tank. The propane was pulling so hard on the little 20 lbs it built a layer of frost on the outside of the tank an 1" think! The ground was a little wet and it froze to the concrete! I was amazed.
the 85 lbs wont do that so I should be good.

I cant give you a precise number. sorry
 
Cold_Steel said:
Enough to get an 85 lbs tank. The propane was pulling so hard on the little 20 lbs it built a layer of frost on the outside of the tank an 1" think! The ground was a little wet and it froze to the concrete! I was amazed.
the 85 lbs wont do that so I should be good.

I cant give you a precise number. sorry
Click to expand...

Wow! That is amazing.
 
kladue said:
You can raise the burner until the light blue center of the flame is within a 1/2" of the bottom of the keg, closer and the flame leaves soot on keg and lots of carbon monoxide in combustion byproducts. Try a adding a couple holes in the keg skirt to let combustion gases get away from bottom and you will find it takes a lot less flame to get job done. Here is a shot of home built 12" burner in operation under vented keg http://picasaweb.google.com/kevin.ladue/BoilKettle#5225673202891787298.
Click to expand...

That burner is sweet, do you have any construction details on it?
 
yeah I'm curious about the details also. How long does it take to boil 10 gallons?
 
Hello

I began building my natural gas single tier brewstand a number of months ago. Having completed it this evening, I fired up the two Hurricane burners I got from Northern Brewery.

It runs very quiet and the flames are small like in the half inch range. Very blue with hardly any yellow.

I am though wondering if they are under powered. I can blow out the flame much like a birthday cake filled with candles.

Yet, holding my hand a couple of feet about the burner I really feel the heat.

Does this seem common for these burners? Am I really, really happy but maybe just don't know it yet?
 
kladue said:
The burners were probably shipped with high pressure orifices, here is a chart for orifice sizes http://bacharach-training.com/orifice_chart.htm. It would appear that you need about a 9/64" drill bit to hit 60K btu's at 4" Wc line pressure. Remove the orifices( Gas inlet fitting) and drill out the jet and you should be good to go.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. I bought the set up from Northern Brewery a number of months ago. I should have been given the natural gas setup.
 
The gas burner under the keg is built from 6 - 1"Od X 6" pieces of tubing that were mitered and welded together. Ends were capped with washers and 3/16" holes were drilled 90 deg. apart for the jets. In the center are 4-3/16" holes under the fender washer which distrubutes the flame in the center to light all 6 arms. Here is a top view with pilot light and burner running at 50% fuel flow command http://picasaweb.google.com/kevin.ladue/PilotLights#5157308850096904738. Electronic high pressure fuel flow control is handled by the red mass flow controllers seen on the panels in the other pictures.
 
So does this mean I could purchase a "banjo" burner, and drill it to the appropriate orifice and it would function at low pressure like the hurricane?

Or could I simply exchange the orifice with a ow pressure brass one for the hurricane???

Kladue, if you could lay the wood for us, that would be awesome!
 
I'm sure Kladue will chime in with much better information, but in the meantime. I talked to a guy at Hurricane. He told me that they actually take the Orifice and regulator and more or less "tune" them to burn the desired BTU's for whatever the application. I ordered several orifices from them and intend on making connections and lighting them up, see what I have then drill and adjust pressure until it looks good.

I know that LPG gas valves use 11"WC as a pressure, so I doubt that can be changed with the type valve you are using. Maybe just drill the orifice, but first check the rating of the gas valve to make sure you don't go over.

I'm still undecided on my valves. I think with the Asco's I will have more leeway as far as pressure is concerned, giving more room for adjustments. And I have a couple already. But I like the auto igniter with the other valve. I also have an LPG furnace valve that I might try as a test to see what I can get out of it.

Not sure what to expect with LPG and higher pressures than 11"WC.
 
One thing that I'm unsure of is the burner control valve. I'm told that a ball valve is not very good for this application. When opened will allow way too much gas all at once. So a needle valve would be best. Any suggestions?
 
Most of the burners jetted for high pressure can be converted to low pressure operation, the caveat is as the pressure goes down the maximum burner output goes down too. The orifice size limit is the maximum opening of the air shutter to get correct fuel/air mix, start small and stop increasing size when shutter is fully opened.
Using a ball valve with a 1/2" opening to regulate burner firing is a challenge, (High pressure use a needle valve), (Low pressure use a globe valve), for flame adjustment. With the needle and globe valves pay attention to the valve stem packing for gas leaks during operation, typical valve locations on stands could lead to a hot suprise at belt buckle level. Low pressure furnace valves have built in flow/pressure controls that can be used to set maximum firing rate, usually accessed from the top of the valve.
 
So we could use the banjo burner and just drill it to accept one of these:

image_672.jpg


And it should essentially be a hurricane burner?
 
Just need to drill and tap burner to accept valve then drill out jet to desired size and you shoud be good to go. I think most of the burners are 1/8" metric pipe threads, if the fitting goes about 3/4 - 1 turn and gets tight then a 1/8" NPT tap will fix the problem.
 
So the orifice is cast or machined in the burner itself, and the part I linked is only a valve? In that case I would be drilling out the cast burner itself to a larger size appropriate for 11"WC according to the above chart?

I would still install the valve pictured above then the regulator sold for the Hurricane and I would be all set.

Sounds like a good way to save 5 bucks on the burner....
 
All the burners I have dealt with have 1/8" metric female pipe thread openings for the gas connector/jet. The orifice in the picture is the small tube that extends from the valve, not inside the burner. Some gas connectors have threaded orifices that can be removed and a swagelok fitting can be tapped to recieve the orifice to convert from flare to compression tubing connection. The 4" burner in my pictures was converted to a swagelok fitting with threaded orifice with 1/4"-28 thread tap. The 6 arm burner uses a 1/16" Id X 1/4" Od tube section as the jet. For the tinkerers you can take a tube fitting and fill the threaded end with solder and drill it out for a jet, this area does not get hot so the solder is not in danger of melting, just try to get opening in center and inline with fitting.
 
Post #28 shows a valve/orifice combo that screws into the cast iron Hurricane burner.

This is what you are looking at: Description:
Low pressure orifice valve, 1/4" MPT x 3/8" male flare. Orifice dia. is .042 - .044 making it suitable for a variety of low pressure burner applications.
 
Kevin,

I saw your DIY burner pictures back in the beginning of the thread. What did you make it out of? Did you just weld two pieces of steel pipe at 90* angles and drill holes in them? It's a pretty slick piece of engineering.
 
That burner is the third iteration of the "Starfish" design built from 1" Od SS tubing leftovers on a hydraulic system install for a paper machine. I mitered and fit the tubing on the job and did the welding at home. One lesson learned was the flames need secondary air to burn clean so holes are 45 deg from centerline to allow air from below to mix and complete combustion. The gas jet was made from 60K psi rated 1/4" od tubing leftovers from the same job. One of the perks of working in the instrumentation division is having all the tube bending and welding equipment at ones disposal, helped to make octagonal 1/2" X 1" Od cfc possible. The down side is working on the road away from home most of the time in the last couple of years.
 
kladue said:
The .042 orifice is the high pressure orifice size, the low pressure orifice should be between .14" and .15".
Click to expand...

It was cut/paste from Hurricane Products website. The valve/orifice combo they sell is to be used with the Low pressure LP regulator they sell specific for Hurricane Burner. I have those items although I never used them. I have a drilled out version of the valve that works well with NG and I don't have it drilled out to .14 - .15 which on my setup would be way too rich burning.
 
Guys,

I need the 'dummy' translation (speak slowly, use small words).

If I swap the Banjo's valve/orifice for the William's Brewing Hurrricane NG conversion valve/orifice and use a low pressure regulator, would this essentially be a Hurricane, with the proper air/fuel ratio for NG?

Would I still need to drill out the orifice?

In all of the posts about the burners, I still have not seen anyone definitively say that the 2 burner castings were the same, or that simply swapping in the Hurricane NG valve was all that was needed.
Sorry if I missed it, but d@mn there are a lot of burner posts.

Jason
 
The simple answer is most of the burners can be retrofit with larger orifice for low pressure, the caveat is the lower the inlet pressure the lower the output. Orifice sizing depends on ability of jet to induce enough air to make a clean flame, too large and you get yellow flames even with air shutter fully open. You could order NG jets and hopefully they are sized for maximum burner output at that pressure.
For the McGyver types you can carefully drill out the high pressure jets in steps and test air shutter setting, stopping when air shutter is 90% open to burn clean.
 
Just want to double check before I order anything. If I'm looking to go low pressure hurricane burners the following should be correct?

http://www.bbqguys.com/item_name_Low-Pressure-10-Inch-Burner_path__item_7564.html

http://www.bbqguys.com/item_name_Fi...d-Low-Pressure-Regulator_path__item_6585.html

I'd like to order from NB, but there out of stock and have been for some time. Anyway the above two items match up with the following three items on hurricanes website, but I'm a little worried because Kladue said the low pressure orifice should be between .14" and .15", and the orifice 63-5111V says it is .042 - .044.

http://www.hurricaneproducts.net/PHPCatalog+/?function=detail&id=17

http://www.hurricaneproducts.net/PHPCatalog+/?function=detail&id=19

http://www.hurricaneproducts.net/PHPCatalog+/?function=detail&id=29
 
Call Hurricane and get the factual info - why guess? .14-.15 is not going to work for you with that set up.

Order Line:
800-624-4711 (8am-4:30pm / Mon-Fri PST)

Fax Line:
661-257-5897 (24hrs a day)

Office Line:
661-257-5888 (8am-4:30pm / Mon-Fri PST)
 

Similar threads

akroessler
Michigan For Sale: BRUTUS 10, 10-20gal brewery
Replies
17
Views
3K
Blackdirt_cowboy
Blackdirt_cowboy
dahlseid
Optimizing output of BG-14 burners
Replies
0
Views
744
dahlseid
dahlseid
htm6934
BTU/Burner Size for 5-10 Gallon Batches?
Replies
4
Views
4K
MaxStout
MaxStout
htm6934
Burner/BTU size for 5-10 Gallon Batches?
Replies
1
Views
1K
MNSmitty
MNSmitty
thisisbeer
Low Pressure propane burner
Replies
3
Views
2K
thisisbeer
thisisbeer

Latest posts

Back
Top