What kind of burner to get?

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jzuidema

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There are many burners on the market. I'll be doing 5 gallon all grain batches.

I'm looking for recommendations on a burner. How many BTU's etc

thanks

Jim
 
Mine is 55,000 BTU and it works great. You will see some with 100k-300k BTU burners. Look, if you want to waste alot of LP, that is cool IMHO... but once my boil starts (less than 10 minutes) I can idle the burner as low as it will go and it will maintain a rollong boil. It is fast enough and efficient. IMHO

Pol
 
Yeah, I don't think btus and all that is really gonna matter much. Just make sure it's a good, sturdy, weather-proof stand. 4 leggers are nice as I've heard stories of 3 leggers being more prone to tip over. I've never personally seen it happen, though.
 
I really wanted to use the specific heat(how much energy in joules it takes to raise the temp of something by 1 degree kelvin) of water and figure out just how many BTU's you would really need. But then I realized that specific heat doesn't take into account time, or at least not that I know of, so that would be pretty useless if it took like and hour just to change the temp.
 
I bought a 55k turkey fryer from Lowes and it does really well. I get a full, 6g boil in 10-15 minutes. You can shell out the cash on a really high btu burner, but I think the turkey fryer set up is more than sufficient to heat up a 6 gallon brew. I have to turn it way down to keep from boiling over. Added bonus..it's only 46 bucks with the burner, a 30qt stock pot (aluminum) and thermometer.
 
I am a newbie here but I'll throw in my 2 cents. After reading other posts last week, alot of people said that the higher btu's were better, higher like 180k+. I shopped around alot and found a 150k btu with a decent square stand for $48 at Home Depot. I have plans to do all grain so I was hoping this would work when I boil more quantities and have a bigger pot. I made an extract batch yesterday and it was more than powerful. Good luck.
 
I have ten burners ( I'm a burner junkie) and the most effective and cleanest burning on the market right now is the KAB-4 Kick -a- banjo burner. You'll love it and Home Depot has the best price the other guys can verify it but I think it is about $68.00 delivered off their web page.:mug:
 
If there is one thing, I mean ONE THING, I've learned in my relatively short brewing history, is to take the plunge now and get the good stuff and you'll never have to upgrade. With that, I bought the banjo burner for doing 6 gallon full boils and in case I wanted to move to the dark side and go all-grain. It's adjustable and you can keep a roiling boil going with very little flame. You can also boil 6 gallons in about 5 minutes instead of waisting 10 to 15 minutes. There may be efficiency differences, but your not ever going to have 100% transfer efficiency going with these kinds of setups. I can do 4, 6 gallon full boils on one tank of propane, 20 pounder. One tank cost me about 13 bucks. Didn't do the math, but for the amount of electricity I'd use for the same amount of boiling with only partials, I'm sure it's way cheaper with propane. Plus, now with it being the summer time down here in good ol' SW Oklahoma, I don't have all the heat in the house the costs me more money, on top of all that, to keep the house cool with the AC running. No smells either!!
 
I'll second that the 55k is adequate. If I had it to do over again I'd have nixed the turkey fryer and spent the money on a keggle and the banjo. I've done three batches with the fryer and, once I learned how to use it correctly, I've had good luck with it.
 
Thanks to all for the input. I went ahead and ordered the big banjo. I figure it won't hurt having the extra BTU's when I'm brewing in the garage in the winter when it's 10 degrees outside.
 
jzuidema said:
Thanks to all for the input. I went ahead and ordered the big banjo. I figure it won't hurt having the extra BTU's when I'm brewing in the garage in the winter when it's 10 degrees outside.
Click to expand...
You'll be glad you did.

One note, when you fire it up, it's gonna take about 10-15 minutes to completely burn off all the black paint so be aware. I didn't know that and the smell was pretty bad.
 
TCHDNSD said:
That's what I'm talking about!!!!!!!!!
I need two of those.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering if that's big enough for a keggle? I got a line on a couple that I plan on converting. you think it would be sturdy enough?


Dan
 
Willsellout said:
I'm wondering if that's big enough for a keggle? I got a line on a couple that I plan on converting. you think it would be sturdy enough?


Dan
Click to expand...
I saw a pic in the gallery around here somewhere showing a burnere that looked like that after the leg collapsed under a 10-gallon brew session.

I'll see if I can find it.

If you ever get to doing 10-gallon brews in a keggle, it had better be a sturdy-ass burner.
 
Here ya go. Not positive they're the same burner...but close enough thatI'd shy away.

Burner_1.jpg
Burner_2.jpg
 
I've read that the 'banjo' style burners don't work so well outside if there is any wind. Can anyone confirm or debunk this?
 
johnsma22 said:
I've read that the 'banjo' style burners don't work so well outside if there is any wind. Can anyone confirm or debunk this?
Click to expand...
This is the main problem I have with that burner. It is windy as hell here pretty much all summer and most of winter.


Dan
 
I brew in the garage with the doors open. I've never had a problem with flame-out. I think the approach the banjo takes is a whole lot of burner "holes" and smaller push of flame. Compared to my turkey fryer that is just a few holes and seems to blow gas real hard.

Some of the flames on this new burner will go out and right back on...but I haven't had a problem with performance.

Then again, outside in a heavy wind? I don't know.
 
I brew in my garage as well with the door open and my street is a bit of a tunnel and the wind runs right through the place. Although I suppose I could move it back in the garage a bit further...


Dan
 
BierMuncher said:
Banjo Burner In Action
Click to expand...

Take a closer look at the video (link above).

You can see there isn't a lot of room between the burner shield and the bottom of the keggle. This was a real windy day (like most days in Missouri) and I had the garage doors only partially openned. Still, it was pretty darn breezy in the garage and I had no problems with this flame.
 
Windy days? Let me tell you about wind and Oklahoma, they go hand in hand. The banjo's only fault is that, not effective with wind. My garage door opens to the east and our winds are primarily SW. If wind is going to be a problem, you may have to device some way of blocking it from the banjo. Also, on that burner and others that I've noticed that were above 55K and all the research I did before I bought mine, Amazon $65 special, there were only a very few of them that had a 16 inch grate. That is the minimal if your going keggle. Even with the banjo, it fits, but there isn't a whole lot of room to play around. It is strong and upon first burning, let it burn for a while. Your going to get yellow flames no matter how you adjust the air opening. I reckon this is from the manufacturing process. It clears up in about 5 to 10 minutes
 
Willsellout said:
I'm wondering if that's big enough for a keggle? I got a line on a couple that I plan on converting. you think it would be sturdy enough?


Dan
Click to expand...

I don't need the stand to be sturdy. I'll mount mine to the brew stand and make it so I can remove from the top level for the HLT and then put under the keggle for the boil. It won't have a chance to collapse 'cause I'm gonna chop those legs off anyway.
 
I hope all of you read this.......DO NOT USE THE BANJO KICK A FOR TEN GALLONS. Say good by to your wort, or worse a third degree burn. (Lawsuit waiting to happen) Do not trust that piece of Chit stand. I moddid mine with a new stand of 2x2 angle and a new wind screen. You have been warned. I am going to post on this---
 
gabe said:
I hope all of you read this.......DO NOT USE THE BANJO KICK A FOR TEN GALLONS. Say good by to your wort, or worse a third degree burn. (Lawsuit waiting to happen) Do not trust that piece of Chit stand. I moddid mine with a new stand of 2x2 angle and a new wind screen. You have been warned. I am going to post on this---
Click to expand...

You are talking about this one:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009JXYQY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

??

What was the problem?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I picked up the Bayou Classic sq14 last week at Home Depot for $45. The stand is nice and sturdy and it had no trouble boiling my wort.
 

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