Burners Calling all engineers

Fri Mar 04, 2011 11:25 am

Looking for educated guesses on Propane burners.
Brewing 10 gallon batches in 15 gal. Keggles outdoors in Kansas (Hot, Really cold, very windy) Currently I am using 23 jet burners and high pressure regulators. I have found that with a few brewing sessions some of the jets don't stay lit and leak raw gas (headache maker). I have the micro drills for cleaning out the orifices but that wasn't the cure. I have seen the Banjo burners in operation. They're great in the garage but get blown around in the wind, even light wind. Since I built the brewery to brew beer with and not to fight with that's my mission. I have wind blocking panels surrounding the burners but, that seems to overwhelm the flame output and backdraft the air holes at the base of the jets giving me yellow flame. What I'm looking for is efficiency of time, propane, and fast boils.
[size=150]HELP[/size]
Chuck
Opportunity favors the prepared mind
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Re: Burners Calling all engineers

Fri Mar 04, 2011 8:37 pm

Hello Fergmeister,

I too brew 10 gal batches in a 15 gal kettle in Kansas using a propane burner. I use banjo burner and it works just fine for me. When the wind picks up I try to move back further in the garage but that is all that I really do to counter for the wind. I recently have been playing with the idea of building an electric heat stick. You might explore the same thing.
Bryantsbrewery
 
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Re: Burners Calling all engineers

Fri Mar 04, 2011 9:03 pm

What do you have for wind blocking panels?
Spiderwrangler
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spiderwrangler
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Re: Burners Calling all engineers

Sat Mar 05, 2011 8:55 am

spiderwrangler wrote:What do you have for wind blocking panels?


What he said.
HEY~!! It's a hobby~!! It's NOT supposed to make sense~!!
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Re: Burners Calling all engineers

Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:32 am

A buddy of mine does wing frying as a side business. He has 4 full size 4' x 8' plywood panels that are hinged together in pairs (can fold out to 4' x 16') On the bottom edge he just has heavy duty brackets that serve as legs (only on the outside, so he can fold it up). He's able to position them where he needs them to block wind and keep kids from getting near the fryers.
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Re: Burners Calling all engineers

Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:39 am

While this is not my area of expertise, my guess (without actually seeing it) is that you blocking panels are too big. You could consider ducting the wind to come up from the bottom (less likely to blow out).
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Re: Burners Calling all engineers

Mon Mar 07, 2011 2:43 pm

Ok so here is what I did. The burner got mived 3" closer to the bottom of the keggle. The wind blocking pannels got moved down to a level that allowed the hot gasses to escape and not extinguish the flame and burnthe make up O2. Finally 7 gallons of 1.10 OG Wee heavy were produced yesterday. Thanks for all of your inputs.
Chuck
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