# Ring burner running dirty flame



## damoninja (28/12/13)

Continued from http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/77359-wtb-gas-burner-adelaide/?p=1119865


So I got a 3 ring burner from elcarter and gave it a whirl today with a few issues. Not saying elcarter's given me a lemon, I'm sure there's something amiss with the setup. 

I put it on a stand to get it off the ground and has some flaps on the sides to protect from wind.

I tested it with 35 litres of tap water, it does get to a boil but took about an hour and didn't really get a good roll going.
I suspect it needs a bigger regulator, although I couldn't actually to get it to produce a full blue flame it was probably half blue half orange. Definitely not a nice clean blue flame like you get on a barbie or gas stove. I tried adjusting all the air covers individually but made little difference, when closed it goes completely orange/yellow but can't shake the orange when opening.

The forward section of the outer ring produces a significantly larger flame than rest of the ring, the middle ring is the best one makes a nice big flame but a fair amount of orange, the inner ring is a small flame, clean blue and goes out if the air intake is more than a few mm open. 

Gas bottle is over half full, so it's not that. 

As far as regulators go, I was looking at buying one of these:
https://nationalhomebrew.com.au/beer/brewing-equipment-pots-and-hardware/other-propane-regulator-high-pressure

But, the fact sheet reckons you should only use a low pressure reg. Will I explode if I hook one of the above up?
All the 3 ring burners I can find seem to suggest they should run at 2.75kpa, where a medium reg goes up to 210 or so. 
http://www.auscrown.com/shop_image/product/25/Ring_burners_updated_22-3-12.pdf


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## elcarter (28/12/13)

Hey mate,

In reference to the pm's and other advice here's a picture of the regulator I've found on my yet to be bricked in 6 ring BBQ. Your free to borrow it just in case this thing is indeed a lemon and you waste any cash 

Pretty sure it's a Hp reg after comparing it to my NASA reg but I would wait to see if anyone has any advice as to if it's safe to use on these first.

I'm worried that the air intake adjustments valves may have gas pushed back through them if the pressures to high.

It may just be a venturi type setup and the increase in pressure may only increase the suction of combustion air and give you the required air / fuel ratio adjustments to get the blue flame.

Or it may be an uncool 4th ring of fire.


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## law-of-ohms (28/12/13)

I use a BOC adjustable with a three ring burner. 


I need to adjust the mixture discs depending on pressure I can run upto 100 kpa to boil 200l


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## jyo (28/12/13)

This is what I have and they work great-

http://gryphonbrewing.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=54&products_id=292


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## Ducatiboy stu (28/12/13)

Have you done the obvious like making sure there is no dirt/ rust blocking things up. When you close up all the air vents near the 3 taps does the flame change. I regualarly drill out the holes in the rings as they tend to rust up. Pull the taps and jets apart to as they gum up after a while.

Orange/yellow flames means its not mixing enough air.


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## damoninja (28/12/13)

elcarter said:


> Hey mate,
> 
> In reference to the pm's and other advice here's a picture of the regulator I've found on my yet to be bricked in 6 ring BBQ. Your free to borrow it just in case this thing is indeed a lemon and you waste any cash
> 
> ...


Thanks for the offer to lend, I've actually got the same one on my barbie and am planning to test it shortly. 

As for the medium pressure I wasn't sure either but looking at many other similar posts it seems to be OK. 

Surely people don't crank it out at 200kpa though?


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## damoninja (28/12/13)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Have you done the obvious like making sure there is no dirt/ rust blocking things up. When you close up all the air vents near the 3 taps does the flame change. I regualarly drill out the holes in the rings as they tend to rust up. Pull the taps and jets apart to as they gum up after a while.
> 
> Orange/yellow flames means its not mixing enough air.


Yep checked the holes, pretty clean nothing blocking that I can see guess I could hit it with some compressed air, if that fails pull it apart and give it a good once over. 

When I adjust the air inlets the flame does change, for instance when they're closed the flame goes completely yellow. When they're 1 to 2 thirds open they run their best.


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## elcarter (28/12/13)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Have you done the obvious like making sure there is no dirt/ rust blocking things up. When you close up all the air vents near the 3 taps does the flame change. I regualarly drill out the holes in the rings as they tend to rust up. Pull the taps and jets apart to as they gum up after a while.
> 
> Orange/yellow flames means its not mixing enough air.


I reckon I had to drill out a few years ago might be the issue right there mate.


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## Glot (28/12/13)

The burner is designed to use a particular type of regulator. Sounds like the reg is either too small or faulty. You should be looking at around 2.5 to 2.75 Kpa out of it under full flow. The reg will have the maximum capacity written on it in Mj/h. This needs to be at least the rating of your burner. A dirty flame like that will also be making excessive carbon monoxide but because you are outside, not an issue. The burner will also have the operating pressure written on it.


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## Aces High (29/12/13)

Wind those little air covers off completely and get yourself and adjustable regulator, that way you will get the maximum air flow you can and you can adjust the gas mixture to get the clean blue flame your looking for.

I always struggled to get a clean flame on those 3 ring burners till I got the adjustable reg, they just don't seem to burn cleanly with a standard one. Ive got the gryphon one, same as jyo and it works well. 

btw, it wont explode if you use an adjustable reg, it will just run cleaner


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## dicko (29/12/13)

If it is burning cleaner on one side of the ring than the other then maybe a spider has crawled into the body of the burner and partially blocking it..

Quote>
The forward section of the outer ring produces a significantly larger flame than rest of the ring, the middle ring is the best one makes a nice big flame but a fair amount of orange, the inner ring is a small flame, clean blue and goes out if the air intake is more than a few mm open. 


My guess if the body of the burner is clean then it is the regulator not having enough pressure.


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## damoninja (29/12/13)

Thanks everyone

Swapped the smaller regulators, no difference. 

The holes appear perfectly opened to me, I could drop the right size drill bit down all of them and none appeared closed over. 
I haven't got a compressor so I just used some air in a can I had, probably not strong enough to do anything. 

The one on the gryphon's brewing site looks the same as the one I've posted but out of it's packaging? It's cheaper, plus the shipping is cheaper, I can get it for $40 all up here. 
https://nationalhomebrew.com.au/beer/brewing-equipment-pots-and-hardware/other-propane-regulator-high-pressure

Anyone know what the shipping times are like from these guys?


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## slcmorro (29/12/13)

With my cast iron ring burner, I found drilling into each hole with a slightly larger drill bit (I'm talking like 0.5mm) really helped with my burn. There's so much junk in there, microscopically I bet it'd look like a mountain range. Over the number of holes, the efficiency would increase significantly, and I'm now seeing that with my standard non adjustable reg.

I literally just got 40L of wort up to a boil in 20 mins, with a foil plate floating on top.


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## elcarter (29/12/13)

I'm not sure the one from national homebrew states it's adjustable.

Maybe use a garden hose and put the ring burner with the air holes facing down and give it some gentle taps with a hammer while you punch water through it to try and flush it out?

I'm sure if you light it for a few minutes afterwards to dry it out the water won't hurt it.


Edit: maybe remove the quick disconnect fitting. It may be restricting the gas flow.


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## damoninja (29/12/13)

elcarter said:


> I'm not sure the one from national homebrew states it's adjustable.
> 
> Maybe use a garden hose and put the ring burner with the air holes facing down and give it some gentle taps with a hammer while you punch water through it to try and flush it out?
> 
> I'm sure if you light it for a few minutes afterwards to dry it out the water won't hurt it.


Looks like the same one as they have here, labels look the same says "With handwheel tightener" 
http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=4170

I was thinking of doing this I've got a high pressure nozzle that should do alright. I'm prepared to get soaked in the process.


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## MartinOC (29/12/13)

I've had this problem in the past, as has another mate. In each case, it was spiders getting in & creating a new home.

Taking everything apart, a good flush with a high pressure garden hose, then reassemble & burn to evaporate the water worked wonders.


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## bradsbrew (29/12/13)

elcarter said:


> Edit: maybe remove the quick disconnect fitting. It may be restricting the gas flow.


This.


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## law-of-ohms (29/12/13)

Burn spiders, BURN! (shudder. ..)


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## damoninja (29/12/13)

bradsbrew said:


> Edit: maybe remove the quick disconnect fitting. It may be restricting the gas flow.





bradsbrew said:


> This.


Giving this a whirl now, already I can see the outer ring has improved and there's less orange in the centre. 

Maintained a rolling boil on a small pot where previously it wouldn't, so I've put the big one back on and have it cranked now.


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## law-of-ohms (29/12/13)

Can u take a picture of it running?


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## damoninja (29/12/13)

law-of-ohms said:


> Can u take a picture of it running?


Finished, sorry 

I just got it to a good rolling boil from room temp in about 30 minutes, from a 60+ degree mash I reckon it will only take 20.

Already emptied the water into empty cubes to cool down (may as well use it for the garden). 

Thanks for the help everyone - seems it was as simple as the quick disconnect cutting the gas down.


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## elcarter (29/12/13)

I don't want to think about how that $25 POS cost me in gas and time now.

I'm really relived it came good.


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## damoninja (29/12/13)

elcarter said:


> I don't want to think about how that $25 POS cost me in gas and time now.


Guessing you used it with the quick connector the whole time?


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## elcarter (29/12/13)

Yep, maybe with a bigger reg later on and that quick disconnect out of the system you might be double batching in no time.

Hope it serves you well It's made quite a lot of good beer so far.


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## damoninja (29/12/13)

elcarter said:


> Yep, maybe with a bigger reg later on and that quick disconnect out of the system you might be double batching in no time.
> 
> Hope it serves you well It's made quite a lot of good beer so far.


Double batching will probably need a bigger pot and definitely a bigger mash tun than I have. I don't mind, I'm happy to have 10 different things in bottles at once


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## damoninja (10/1/14)

Took some shitty footage of the difference between the low and adjustable regulators. 
Didn't turn the adjustable one up anywhere near full pressure, didn't want it to blow the flame off.


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## dicko (10/1/14)

Holy hell damoninja that made a big difference........That should get you to the boil fairly quickly


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## damoninja (17/1/14)

So I just got the thing running for about 15 minutes to boil some water / sanitise some jars for chilli sauce and the outside ring just won't stay alight. 

Was OK for 10 minutes roaring away, when POP it backfired and wouldn't light again without backfiring even with the air intake all the way closed. 
Having said this, it held a nice 15 litres of water with just the inner and middle rings without a problem. 

Hoping to hopefully this doesn't cause me any issues with tomorrow's brew ;/


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## damoninja (18/1/14)

Apparently it runs better without the outside ring at all :blink:

Looks like the outer ring was just wasting gas.


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