natural gas setup - Question about hose diameter and BTU output

indianajns · Nov 23, 2013

Hello Engineers and smarter than me brewers. Working on my brewery build and have gone with Natural gas feed to banjo burners. I have 1/2 NG pipe and a banjo burner which I have connected to an orifice from brewershardware with the correct sized hole for natural gas. The problem I am having is that I purchase 1/2 inch flex tube to connect to the 3/8 orifice. No one at Home depot or any local plumbing shop has the parts I need to connect the 3/8 male orifice to the 1/2 female yellow flex tube. So, what I have done is purchased a 3/8 flex tube which connects just fine to the orifice. See picture. Fired it up today and put 5 gallons of 65 F water into a keggle and had the burner wide open. It took 28 minutes to heat this water to boiling. My question is, do you think this amount of BTU's is enough when I brew 10 gallon batches or will I need to continue to look for a way to hook a 1/2 flex tube to my 3/8 orifice? THANKS! :ban:

Bobby_M · Nov 23, 2013

The type and distance of the line running out to that stand will have a much bigger impact on the volume of gas that gets to the burner than the short flex line. Talk more about that.

indianajns · Nov 23, 2013

Bobby_M said:
The type and distance of the line running out to that stand will have a much bigger impact on the volume of gas that gets to the burner than the short flex line. Talk more about that.

Thx for quick response. There is a 1/2 ID black gas pipe coming out of house in back yard. I have attached a 8 foot 1/2 ID flex line to this black gas pipe. I then attach this flex line to a 1/2 ID black gas pipe that runs at he bottom of my brew stand that will feed 3 banjo burners. the 3/8 flex tubing is about 14 inches.

indianajns · Nov 23, 2013

Wait..., are you the Bobby that I just bought a site glass for my HLT?? Love it! works great and the YouTube video you produced showing how to install and add the numbers was very helpful.

Hockeyman · Nov 24, 2013

Find out which gas line is the longest from your gas meter.

Take that length and look at the 0.5 psi chart on pg 3.

Round up and see what your 1/2" line can supply.

ie: If your longest line is 30 feet, it can only provide 97,000 btu to your stand.

indianajns · Nov 24, 2013

Looks like the line is about 25-30 feet from meter to the back yard. I guess what I want to ask is am I going to loose any significant BTU's by having the last 14 " of my NG line at 3/8 when the rest of the line is 1/2? Looks like Bobby answered that question as having a short 14" flex line at 3/8 will not have a large impact on my final BTU's. Like I said in the OP, based on heating 5 gallons in a keggle with the burner wide open it is heating the water at just under 5 degrees a minute. When I do 10 gallon batches, based on others' experience, will this kind of heating power be sufficient???