Propane burner questions

[ILMSTMF]

Got the Blichmann, never used propane burner before. Safety... Manual clearly states not to use in garage. I think it's pretty common for home brewers to use these kinds of devices in the garage. With door cracked. Question is, is this truly a dangerous practice?
Cooling - I got the legs for the burner. Can I put the immersion chiller in kettle at flameout? I'd rather not build a separate stand to move the kettle onto just for cooling.
Thanks!

 

[Stillraining]

If you were a manufacturer you would put all kinds of warning on your stuff anymore as well...use common sense and have the door open and your golden.

Yes you can most certainly use your IC with your current set up..be sure to agitate it the whole time it will cool much faster.

 

[jmill]

I use 2 Blichmanns, both in the garage but with the doors open.

I also use an immersion chiller and have had no issues with the legs.

That warning is there because they have a good attorney.

 

[woo_pig]

I put my chiller in the last 20 mins of boil to sanitize it.

 

[ILMSTMF]

Meant to mention that I understand the warnings are written there as a means to cover their hide. Just curious if anyone has sustained injury from dismissing their warnings.

About the IC - I'm saying, will the hot surface be a big obstacle to the cooling? Despite flame off.
Thanks!

 

[msayler]

A few brewdays ago, I decided to brew in my detached carport, using my propane burner. The carport is about 400 square feet, with two open sides that I have screened in, to keep the bugs out. I had the burner and kettle set up near the front opening (where I added the red X), with a fan circulating air out of the opening itself.

After mashing and returning the hot wort to the kettle, I stuck it back on the burner and cranked it to high. Fifteen minutes or so had passed, and I realized that I had forgotten to grab a pre-boil gravity, so I headed in to the house to snag my refractometer.

Out in the carport, I had music going, the burner hissing, and was doing some reading while I waited. In the quiet house, I suddenly became aware that I was moderately dizzy, semi-nauseated, kind of fuzzy-brained, and had a weird ringing in my ears. It was kind of like being half-way to drunk, but up to this point, I had consumed no booze. After grabbing the refractometer, I headed back out, killed the heat, and carefully moved my setup outside the screens. After a while, the ringing went away, and I felt normal again.

I had figured that the fan, two "screened-in-but-fully-open" walls, a decent breeze, and the burner's proximity to the outside would have kept the emissions in check, but I guess not. I Amazon'd a CO meter to have on-hand for next time, so we'll see if it was indeed the problem.

 

[jekeane]

That burner retains a good deal of heat and you would see a little quicker cooling taking the kettle off the stand. However, moving hot wort is a safety issue. I often will get my 3 and 5 gallon batches down to 100 and then move the kettle when I switch to my ice bath pump.

On a safety note I have found that if I have any water left in the immersion chiller that burner will cause the water in the chiller to erupt out in a blast of steam and potential death... I never had that happen with my old less powerful burner.

I also would get as much ventilation as possible not worth the risk in my opinion.

 

[Morrey]

By all means, chill with your kettle safely in place on your Blichmann burner. Stainless is known for rapid cooling unlike other metals. Regardless, you are much safer leaving your kettle in place as opposed to moving boiling liquid around for no real value. When you get into 20 and 30 gallon kettles, lifting them full presents a challenge.

 

[Jwin]

Chill on the stand. NEVER try to move boiling wort with anything but a pump. Burners hold little heat compared to gallons of wort.
Also, if you are going to try to brew inside, get a carbon monoxide detector. Anything less than those two things are flirting with great danger. Brew on but brew safe.

 

[MaryB]

I brew in the garage. I open windows on the windward side and open the garage door a foot or so. CO is heavier than air so it pools and goes out the door... I do brew right by the door and living on the MN prairie I usually have wind...

 

[ILMSTMF]

All great tips, thanks!
Moving into a new home with two car wide attached garage. My new SS chiller has garden hose connects so, although the water spout will be closer to the house than the garage doors, I can run a long line of hose to the burner position near the garage door.
I will get a CO detector for the garage.
Thanks all!

 

[mongoose33]

I put my IC in during the last 10 minutes; Whirlfloc at 15 minutes, IC at 10 minutes. When I put in the IC I already have it connected to hoses. One is a garden hose from my outside spigot (outside water is cheaper than that which goes into the sewer system), the other is inserted into a 10-foot shortie hose--the vinyl tubing is a perfect tight fit. That shortie hose goes into the garage floor drain, which drains to the street, not into the sewer system.

Never thought about moving the boil kettle from the propane burner; interesting idea but I agree with the others above: moving a 5.5 gallon kettle of boiling liquid is contraindicated.

But--I wonder if it would help if I positioned a fan underneath, pointed up at the burner to help cool it (and the kettle). I may try that, can't hurt.

As far as warnings go on burners, I brew in the garage with the doors open. Hot air rises, and there's enough circulation that I've never once been concerned about CO or CO2.

Certainly one should never brew on such a contraption in an enclosed environment, as there is also a serious fire risk. As far as combustion gases go, this from Google:

Complete combustion of propane results in the formation of carbon dioxide and water vapour. Carbon monoxide is a by-product of combustion when there is not enough oxygen to burn the propane completely.

If the door is open, I don't see this as a problem at all. In fact, I think there's a nice analogue for this, i.e., using natural gas in a house to boil. That nat gas isn't vented either (unless you turn on a vent fan), and its main combustion products are also CO2 and water vapor. If that was a huge concern, I don't think we'd have gas stoves and ovens.

Incomplete combustion, on the other hand, can result in carbon monoxide and there are potentially other nasties that may result. Keep that flame blue!

 

[Morrey]

I brew in the garage. I open windows on the windward side and open the garage door a foot or so. CO is heavier than air so it pools and goes out the door... I do brew right by the door and living on the MN prairie I usually have wind...

Similar....I have a brewcave with two side windows and a double front door. Burner near open doors with both windows open and window fan in one of the windows drawing out, not blowing in.

 

[Stillraining]

A few brewdays ago, I decided to brew in my detached carport, using my propane burner. The carport is about 400 square feet, with two open sides that I have screened in, to keep the bugs out. I had the burner and kettle set up near the front opening (where I added the red X), with a fan circulating air out of the opening itself.

After mashing and returning the hot wort to the kettle, I stuck it back on the burner and cranked it to high. Fifteen minutes or so had passed, and I realized that I had forgotten to grab a pre-boil gravity, so I headed in to the house to snag my refractometer.

Out in the carport, I had music going, the burner hissing, and was doing some reading while I waited. In the quiet house, I suddenly became aware that I was moderately dizzy, semi-nauseated, kind of fuzzy-brained, and had a weird ringing in my ears. It was kind of like being half-way to drunk, but up to this point, I had consumed no booze. After grabbing the refractometer, I headed back out, killed the heat, and carefully moved my setup outside the screens. After a while, the ringing went away, and I felt normal again.

I had figured that the fan, two "screened-in-but-fully-open" walls, a decent breeze, and the burner's proximity to the outside would have kept the emissions in check, but I guess not. I Amazon'd a CO meter to have on-hand for next time, so we'll see if it was indeed the problem.

Wow...those are all listed symptoms alright..You must be really sensitive then, or I'm really torrent one of the two.

I have a wood shop with no electric heat just a wood stove. But in the winter that can take a good 45 min to really take the chill off so I use a propane salamander for the first 30 to 40 min or so to heat the place up. This is a 20x 20 building within a bigger pole building so its not air tight by any means but its way more air tight then your carport that's for sure and its 400SF with a 12foot ceiling I do not open a window door any anything after all Im trying to heat it up. I have never felt any of those symptoms and I'm working with whirling saw blades so if I ever had I would certainly have stopped long ago. Not disbelieving you but sure seems odd to me for sure.

 

[Stillraining]

Wait!....if it was Rap or Opera music you were listening too then this explains the whole problem. And the propane was an Innocent scapegoat.
PM me for a list of healthy music.

 

[kh54s10]

I don't use a Blichmann but I brew with propane on an enclosed porch. It has windows waist high on three sides. 3 windows each side. I open at least 3 of them and leave the screen door open. I have never had any problems. My burners are a turkey fryer for the HLT and a Bayou Classic SP10 for the BK.

Another reason they have that warning is because people will use the burner for frying turkeys etc. Flaming oil in a garage is not a good thing.

 

[msayler]

Wait!....if it was Rap or Opera music you were listening too then this explains the whole problem. And the propane was an Innocent scapegoat.
PM me for a list of healthy music.

I was digging through some boxes of crap and found an old 30GB Zune of mine (ha!!), so I was tripping down memory lane with the 'shuffle all' feature. Some rap in there, but definitely no opera! :beard:

As far as the CO goes, I'm not entirely sure that I get especially efficient combustion when I use it with the keggle. My smaller flat-bottomed pot always allowed for bright blue flames, but I noticed that the keggle causes a little yellow to be mixed in at full blast. Who knows.