what's wrong with my burner?

[frydogbrews]

i have a propane burner that i picked up on clearance from wally world. it works really well, boils huge amounts of water quickly, etc...but i can never get it to go blue flame, it's almost always orange/yellow and leaves massive carbon deposits on my kettle. i have tried playing with the air thing to let more air in or less, and it barely changes anything.
is it just a crappy burner?
after 1.5 years of brewing, i feel i am ready to upgrade, but i don't want to if i can fix this thing. i just don't like thinking i am wasting a bunch of propane.

 

[Bensiff]

Yeah that sounds like an air/fuel mix issue. Too much gas and not enough air. Check the jets to make sure they aren't clogged up. Can you lower the gas flow and get a blue flame?

 

[frydogbrews]

no, if i go lower it's just little dancing yellow flames like a bunch of candles. it makes the giant jet engine sound when you crank it up, but still no intense blue flames.

 

[Bensiff]

If it will go full burn then you are obviously flowing gas just fine, so its on your air intake side of things. Pull the air adjuster off and look inside to see if there is anything obviously obstructing air flow.

 

[clamflats]

my bet is that you have some sort of spider web in there. use a gun cleaning brush or if you know some one with a small sand blaster it cleans up the inside nicely

 

[Catt22]

A pic of the burner and the regulator might help.

 

[frydogbrews]

well, i took the whole thing apart and got a bunch of rust out, but nothing blocking anything. using the burner right now to bring a single hop citra ipa, but it's doing the same thing. i'll just put the king cooker or one of the other nicer ones on my list of more stuff to buy.
this one works great, i just think i am wasting a bunch of propane, and all the soot all over the pot is getting pretty annoying. is everyone's brew pot covered with a thicka$$ layer of black soot that gets all over everything? this is the only burner i have ever used, so that's normal to me, but i'm guessing it shouldn't be that way? 40 batches in, so i guess i should have asked that question sooner!

 

[Catt22]

well, i took the whole thing apart and got a bunch of rust out, but nothing blocking anything. using the burner right now to bring a single hop citra ipa, but it's doing the same thing. i'll just put the king cooker or one of the other nicer ones on my list of more stuff to buy.
this one works great, i just think i am wasting a bunch of propane, and all the soot all over the pot is getting pretty annoying. is everyone's brew pot covered with a thicka$$ layer of black soot that gets all over everything? this is the only burner i have ever used, so that's normal to me, but i'm guessing it shouldn't be that way? 40 batches in, so i guess i should have asked that question sooner!

I suspect that you may have the wrong orifice installed if it's burning that rich regardless of the air damper being wide open. Someone may have cannibalized the burner or otherwise swapped parts before it came into your hands. Use a drill bit to check the size of the orifice jet. I don't remember the sizing off the top of my head, but post back with what you have and we can track it down fairly easily. Occam's razor usually applies to this sort of problem.

 

[clamflats]

it would help to know what type of burner you have. if you got the inside clean it sounds like the jet is for NG. last ditch try remove the air shutter. thats what i had to do. if it doesn't work get a smaller sized jet.