Gas Selection For New Brew Shed & Bbq

[Airgead]

Folks

I'm in the process of building a new brew shed and since gas fills for my 4 ring burner (low pressure) and BBQ are costing me a fortune (about 15-20 fills/year), I'm looking at getting them both permanently plumbed in to the gas supply. The question is - which one? We have town gas connected to the house so the obvious solution is to convert the BBQ and burner to natural gas and get some bayonet points put in. Trouble is that I've heard that even after conversion, natural gas just doesn't have the oomf of LPG. The other option is to hire a large 90/120kg LPG cylinder with on-site top up and have them plumbed into that.

LPG will be dearer and require a separate set of gas plumbing so my preference on cost and convenience is natural but is it up to the task?

Anyone else had experience with natural gas conversions? Even the mighty Google isn't much help this time.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Fents]

try these threads mate :

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=16548

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...?showtopic=5537

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...=3800&st=15

good luck.

 

[Duff]

T.D did a conversion to natural gas in his brewery and posted about it. From his accounts, his 3 ring boiled 40L easily as long as the burner was modified.

Hopefully he'll read this, or you could try sending him a PM. I have seen him online, but he has been a little quiet of late <_<

 

[reg]

I have both my BBQ and a 23 jet mongolian burner on Natural Gas.
They both work very well and I cant see any difference once converted.

Any difference is far out weighed by not running out of gas and having to run out and get a refill halfway through a boil.

 

[Trev]

I went through this a few years ago. I ended up converting our BBQ to natural gas and haven't looked back. We use it so much year round. The BBQ sits on the back deck with a bayonet fitting. I had a second ome installed in the deck as well and sometimes I bring our gas space heater out and use that as well.

As for brewing, I now boil my wort on the BBQ, sitting the boiler across 2 of the burners. The boil is OK, but probably not as good nor as quick as one could get using a decent 3 ring burner powered by LPG - still though it is adequate.

I have bought a seperate 3 ring burner and intend to modify it to use natural gas. I'm just intending to drill out the jets a bit to get more gas and hence raise the BTU's.

If anybody has experience with this I'd love to hear from you.

Trev

 

[Blackfish]

I've just done this, the economics of NG are great.

I think modding burner jets is best left to the pros or the very competent. For BBQs, Bunnings does a $100 conversion kit with reg, braided bayonet hoses & jets to suit - easy.
23 or even 10 jet Mongolian Burners provide more than enough BTUs at a fraction of the running cost. My only beef with them is the noise, which is really an excuse to turn up the music!

I ran 1/2 in gas pipe to the burner but 3/8 will probably do the job in hindsight. Finding a Plumber who will take part payment in beer is not too hard these days. Go for it, If you are serious enough about brewing to consider it & you plan on staying where you are for a bit, the savings will add up over time.

 

[Barramundi]

and mongolians are available in both LPG and natural gas configurations .. no need for modification ..

 

[Airgead]

Thanks Guys

Looks like natural gas is the way to go. Even if I end up having to swap my 4 ring for an NG mongolian it will work out cheaper in the long run. With luck the gasfitter will be able to convert it for me but it is a cheap piece of crap so no great loss either way.

Cheers
Dave

 

[white.grant]

Hmm,

I have NG to the BBQ but currently use a NASA with a medium pressure reg on LPG for the brewery - I really like the 15 minute boil times (and the noise).

So, what kind of time are we looking at for a NG Mongol to boil 40L?

cheers
Grant