Jet burner / keggle distance?

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

I'm beginning to wonder if I have my jet burners set to far apart from the bottom of my keggles.

What distance is everyone using? My burners are your typical cheap forged jet burners that come with those turkey friar setups. 10psi regulators.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

I've got burners like yours and I put mine a little closer than how they come on a turkey fryer. The mounting point (bottom of burner) is 5" from where the keggle rests. The flame really spreads out over the bottom, and I rarely if ever have to turn them up all the way, even when boiling a 10 gal batch.

Here's a pic to give you an idea. That's 2" steel to give you a reference.

 

[Rhoobarb]

I don't know if this will help you, but I thought I'd share it, FWIW.

I have the same type burners. I say burners - plural - b/c last winter I bought a new turkey fryer set up on sale. The new one had a sturdier metal frame than my old one. It also had a 10PSI regulator whereas my old one was a 5PSI. The tops of the burners are ~3.25" from the bottom of my pot (I don't have a keggle). I began to notice over time that my effeciencies were lower than thay had been in the past (~65-68% vs. 75%). Nothing else had changed - same mash tun, even some of the same recipes as before. I also noticed that the bottoms of my HLT and brew pot were 'blacker' with soot than they ever had been in the past.

Frustrated, this past weekend I decided to take a look at both burners and regulators side by side and see if I could see any differences at all. The burners looked identical on top. There were a couple of very slight differences in the body molding. The 10PSI regulator had Chinese writing all over it while my old 5PSI regulator was all in English. I couldn't tell for sure where either one was made.

On a whim, I decided to swap the new burner and regulator out with the old burner and old 5PSI regulator. I brewed on Saturday and, whadya know, I hit my numbers dead on! Like I said, I don't know if this will help you at all, I just found it interesting and possibly germane to the subject. I think when and if I do decide to get a keggle, I might pony up for a banjo burner.

 

[Cheesefood]

When I move and build my stand, I might upgrade to a kick-a and use my current burner just to heat my mash/sparge water.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

I know people who have them love their kick-a burners, but I don't have any complaints with those cheap cast iron burners. They do everything I need them to do for 10 gal batches, and like I said, I've pretty much stopped turning them all the way up - there's no need. If I needed more output I could go to a 20 psi reg, but I can't imagine why. I think there are few here who boil the volumes that really require the kick-a burner.

Just my $0.02.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

I have to go out of town so I'll try moving them closer when I get back. Mine are quite a bit lower than sparky's. I'll try 5" distance.

 

[Brewer3401]

I am using a 10 jet and 23 jet natural gas burner. 3" from the tip of the jets to the bottom of the pot.
Calculated this "visually" before welding on mounting brackets.
Seems to work well.

 

[D*Bo]

I found the only diffrence betweeen the 55K BTU and the 160K BTU burners was the 55K was painted red and the 160K had a high pressure regulator.

Huge diffrence on the same stand. No noticeable diffrence in gas usage, maybe a slight improvement since no grilling was done with the low pressure. Much faster boil times, and more vigorous boils. Maybe a bit too much some times.