Is My Gas Burner Strong Enough?

[troopa]

What fine print... its there in a massive JPG picture for you
Just reduce your consumption during 2-8PM monday to friday and youll save a Crap load of money every quarter

Anyway just pointing out something that others might not of known about

Tom

 

[geoffi]

If you like twiddling your thumbs, get a three-ring burner.

My Nasa burner gets 45 litres of wort up to a boil from sparge temp in about 15 minutes.

It's the main reason I can get a double batch done in under four hours.

Tempus fugit.

 

[paulwolf350]

LPG depending on purity has about 30mj per Litre, there is 2L per Kg

So my 8.5Kg refill has 510mj of energy stored.

510/30mj hr = 17hr run time(on full)

Under $2 per brew, not really worth worrying about.

LPG gives me portability, if I want to brew at a mates on the weekend no problems.
If I move I don't need to get another 15amp socket installed.

(There is a potential difference that if using high pressure LPG systems there is a higher % wastage. Making the cost per brew higher.)

-- I just checked my brew book and can confirm I have had 9 brews on the same bottle.

But we are now talking within $1 a brew.



QldKev

Thanks kev, thats the sort of info I was after, I spent that long calculating and typing, I missed the last 4 posts

Paul

PS and also thakyou troopa for the 'electric' side of the discussion

 

[QldKev]

If you like twiddling your thumbs, get a three-ring burner.

My Nasa burner gets 45 litres of wort up to a boil from sparge temp in about 15 minutes.

It's the main reason I can get a double batch done in under four hours.

Tempus fugit.

Actually a good point to mention yes there are more powerful burners out there, that will do a quicker job. I did mention that a 3-ring was the smallest burner that I would recommend "I wouldn;t recommend anything less than the 3 ring when it comes to the full boil" I wouldn't even think about using the 3 ring for a double. I have built a metal ring to stop wind blowing the heat away/ heat escaping around the base of mine. It covers about 75% of the diameter so only 1/4 is open. I should also mention that I'm in sunny Queensland so the outside temp I brew at is a lot warmer. :icon_cheers:

Also the I believe the 2/3/4 ring burners will not run on a high pressure reg. But if you can borrow one give it a try and please let us know how you go.

Can anyone confirm this: with the more powerful burners you will result in a larger waste of lpg/heat due to the rate of absorbsion. So even thou you get to boil quicker you get less batches from the LPG bottle.

I guess one more point in favour of the elec setup is you are less likely to run out half way through a batch. I have 3 LPG bottles so not so much an issue for me, but most people only have the one.

Some really good discussions here :beerbang:

QldKev

 

[BennyBrewster]

Presently I use a Nasa burner and it boils my 30 liter batches in under 15 minutes no worries.

However I'm curious as to how much heat I'm wasting using the stand that burner came mounted on. I assume some science has gone into determining how far the stand holds a flat bottom pot away from the flame to get the most out of the burner. I'm using converted kegs and due to the concave bottom and the collar that it sits would be further from the flame than a standard flat bottom pot.

This is the stand mine came with.

I'm building a brew stand as we speak and am going to make my burner mounts adjustable (up and down). Do you think lifting the burner a little closer to the pot would be effective?

 

[paulwolf350]

Also the I believe the 2/3/4 ring burners will not run on a high pressure reg. But if you can borrow one give it a try and please let us know how you go.

Some really good discussions here :beerbang:

QldKev

You are probably right, but that is how he runs it for making lead sinkers, 3 ring and an adjustable high pressure reg, pretty sure it is adjustable from 0 - 35 psi in very small increments, might be something like one off a lpg oxy set. Pretty sure it is very inefficient and uses mega gas when turned up

what reg are you running kev, $2 a brew I can live with, just dont want to burn 1/2 a bottle a brew.

Paul

 

[winkle]

I use a 3 ring and get around 10 x 20 odd litre batches for a standard 8.5kg gas bottle which I'm very happy with. That said I'm considering using a mongolian 10 jet since I can use the same reg, but I'm thinking it will struggle with double batches (40 litre +).

 

[geoffi]

The NASA burners might not win on gas efficiency, but they are great on the time efficiency. In any case, I'd say I get four or five double batches out of one 8.5kg bottle, which seems pretty good to me. The amount of time you need to run it flat out is pretty short, as it pumps out so much heat and gets you up to your temps or boil so quickly.

 

[bear09]

Just a guess with the 3 ring camping burner, a "rolling boil" over 6 hours will cost 25-30 litres of LPG and about $5 with elec.

Still OPEN FLOOR for opinions on this, as I have not experimented with different burners.

Get clever and get a plumber to come and hook up your 3 ring burner onto Natural Gas. Cheap as and limitless (well until we run out of fossil fuels)

 

[geoffi]

Get clever and get a plumber to come and hook up your 3 ring burner onto Natural Gas. Cheap as and limitless (well until we run out of fossil fuels)

Only natural gas in my neighbourhood...

 

[QldKev]

You are probably right, but that is how he runs it for making lead sinkers, 3 ring and an adjustable high pressure reg, pretty sure it is adjustable from 0 - 35 psi in very small increments, might be something like one off a lpg oxy set. Pretty sure it is very inefficient and uses mega gas when turned up

what reg are you running kev, $2 a brew I can live with, just dont want to burn 1/2 a bottle a brew.

Paul

I'm running the standard bbq low pressure reg, from Bunnings. Just doing a brew now and ran out of LPG lol... OK didn't make 10 brews.

also

4 or 5 doubles is about the same LPG usage as what I got from my 3 ring burner (9 x singles). So not much difference in the LPG usage, just a good time savings with the more powerful burner.

QldKev

 

[QldKev]

Presently I use a Nasa burner and it boils my 30 liter batches in under 15 minutes no worries.

However I'm curious as to how much heat I'm wasting using the stand that burner came mounted on. I assume some science has gone into determining how far the stand holds a flat bottom pot away from the flame to get the most out of the burner. I'm using converted kegs and due to the concave bottom and the collar that it sits would be further from the flame than a standard flat bottom pot.

This is the stand mine came with.

I'm building a brew stand as we speak and am going to make my burner mounts adjustable (up and down). Do you think lifting the burner a little closer to the pot would be effective?

Never having used a NASA not sure. With the low pressure ring burners I know the most efficient spot is where the flame turns from blue to yellow.

QldKev

 

[Dr Excess]

Can anyone tell me the power output of a NASA burner? Burners in the UK I've seen recommended come in at around 8.5 Kw/ 30 000 btu/hr and I'm looking to compare this with the NASA,

Cheers

D

 

[white.grant]

Can anyone tell me the power output of a NASA burner? Burners in the UK I've seen recommended come in at around 8.5 Kw/ 30 000 btu/hr and I'm looking to compare this with the NASA,

Cheers

D

Grain and grape advertise the high pressure NASA burners at 40mj/hour or around 40,000btu.

cheers

grant

 

[QldKev]

I thought the Nasa would have been higer than 40mj. I'm running a 3 ring burner which is rated at 32m/j ( 30,331 btu)

QldKev

 

[geoffi]

I've seen NASA, aka turkey burners rated to between 150K and 200K BTU. They certainly heat an equivalent volume of water/wort several times faster than a three-ring burner.

 

[chappo1970]

-- I just checked my brew book and can confirm I have had 9 brews on the same bottle.

But we are now talking within $1 a brew.



QldKev

With my Rambo which is 50hj/hr I get 9 double batch brews per 8.5 kg. It will will boil 54lt of say from 70C at mash out in about 10-15 mins

...with the more powerful burners you will result in a larger waste of lpg/heat due to the rate of absorbsion. So even thou you get to boil quicker you get less batches from the LPG bottle.

QldKev

Gauging by what else has been said on this thread 9 doubles per 8.5kg bottle is not over the top consumption wise. In fact I open it right up to hop it on to the boil and then back it way off to maintain a nice rolling boil.

Rambo Specs

Description:
This is a Rambo HPA100LPKIT with Piezo Ignition.
Comes complete with 1.8m braided hose & medium pressure Regulator.
The perfect burner for AG Brewing

Overall Dimensions
Height 168mm
Width 312mm
Depth over control knob 498mm

Included in kit
1 x HPA100LP Medium Pressure Burner
1 x MPRLFT16 Med/High Pressure Regulator (not adjustable).
1 x RHS005 Stainless Steel Class 'd' Medium Pressure Braided Hose

Gas consumption 0.98kg/hr

 

[Midnight Brew]

Digging up an old thread.

This was my experiment to find out evaporation rates and a test run of my setup.

Specs
All Grain BIAB
80L Ali Pot (Robinox)
32Jet Mongolian Burner
Adjustable Reg (Keg King)
70L of Rainwater at 12.5C

35C @ 15 mins
58C @ 30 mins
72C @ 40 mins (Strike Temp)
100C @ 60 mins

Lost 6L-7L of water to evaporation over 60 mins at a boil so around 9% evap rate.
So with a 90 min boil I expect to lose around 10 L.

Gas used: Just under half a 9kg LPG bottle so I'd be using around 2-3kg of gas an hour.

Things to consider:
Rainwater temp is lower then ambient tap water temp. Also use of hot tap water would have sped things up.
Garage door was open and it was a little windy so may have slowed things down.
These specs are for a double batch at around 55L of packaged beer, I plan on doing singles to start.

Question
Is this efficient use of LPG? If not is there anything I can do to make it more efficient? (Perhaps block up a few jets with bolts to divert the flame more towards the center of the pot)

Cheers
Midnight Brew

 

[glassgrenade]

Not really. That's the level of use I used to get until i read a post about some bloke moving his mongoliana bit closer. Now I can get 4 double batches from a single bottle of gas, sometimes four and a half. Now I jut gotta find a cheap source of gas.

 

[Pennywise]

Mash temps are a bit higher than 12.5 degrees so I think you'll have much better numbers regarding gas in an actual brew run