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New Burner
I'm going to purchase a new burner as I think it's why i'm not getting a hot break in my boils. I have vigorous rolling boils, but I think they can be better. Ive been looking at the Kick a Banjo, but i've been hearing some negative things about it, like even though it's a large 200.000 btu plus burner, you can't use them all because the flame will go out, or you can't see the flames because of the way the windguard is, and you cannot tell if the super sensitive safety switch has tripped.
Does anyone have suggestions on what one to get? I have a 45,000btu burner now, but I think especially in the winter months, the boil was getting slow because my large aluminum pot was dissipating the heat to quick, when I would put the lid half on, it was better, but no hot break.
any help would be great either way i'm using the new one as my main burner, so I want it to be good, and have enough umph to get a nice hot break.
An important question is: do you feel as if your beers are suffering as a result of your burner? Hot break is hard to actually see sometimes. It really depends on how big your grain bill is or if you have enough particulate matter in the wort to help precipitate the protein as the temp rises. Sometimes a hot break will only look like the wort has become hazy. You won't always see big flakes... If your wort is actually boiling, then it is plenty hot enough to denature the proteins in solutions resulting in their precipitation. I would take a small sample in a clear glass after the boil has gone on for 10 minutes or so to see if you can see a change in the turbidity of your wort. I'm not sure a new burner will remedy your problem.
But if you are looking for a good excuse to update your brewery 
I would advise you to look into the High Pressure Square burner by Bayou classic. It has a nice big base that will hold keggles and the burner is quality even when run outside. Cheers!
I have the Kick a Banjo 4. It's the 210K btu version from a couple years ago. It is a beast of a burner! It gets 8 gallons cold water rolling in about 10-15......hot wort is boiling before the sparge is complete, so I just turn down the gas until it's all in there, and then it's only a minute or two to full boil. I got a huge hot break; huge enough to make me kill the gas in panic at first.
The burner itself is hard to control..there is no "low" setting. More like medium is the least sustainable pressure it will run on. It uses a lot of gas, so if you do the same size batches often, you 'll be able to calculate exactly where to turn the gas to to keep a good solid roll, and not waste gas.
Also, it's loud. Your neighbors will certainly know someting is up in your yard. I was out at my mailbox, 40 yards away, and could still here it ripping away. I'm working to get some sort of heat shield for the bottom. I've been using aluminium foil, but obviously that needs to be replaced each time, and the heat also sometimes melts the foil sheets, and it falls apart. Without the heat shield, the wind is a bitch if it's real windy, and it's hard to stand near it to stir or get a sample from without your legs combusting. A heat shield is a must I think..
All in all, I'm very happy I bought it. I kept the old burner to keep hot water going as well...
1n1m3g wrote:
But if you are looking for a good excuse to update your brewery
This is what I have for my second burner. It works great for boiling a near full keggle.
I think the only real advantage that a high output burner has is time to boil. Because once you are at boil it takes much less energy to maintain it than most burners put out at full bore. For my brew day, I just structure activities around the ramping period it takes to get water to heated to temp. I know that for a 60 minute mash, I need to start heating my sprage water with about 20 minutes to go so I have 170F water to sparge with.
1n1m3g wrote:
An important question is: do you feel as if your beers are suffering as a result of your burner?
No, not at all, they just keep getting better and better. What I noticed is that it will get to a good rolling boil for about 10 seconds, and then the surface of the wort will be rolling slightly for a few seconds, almost like nothing is going on, and then the boil comes rolling back up again, and is sustained for 10 seconds. I'm thinking it has to be the heat getting pulled out of the top sides when it's cold out. I have had a hot break before, that is why this is aggravating.
Burners are fairly cheap, this one cost me 69$ at Home depot, and the Kick a burner is on 84 dollars online, I need 2 burners eventually anyway, I just want to get the best one I can.
1n1m3g wrote:
An important question is: do you feel as if your beers are suffering as a result of your burner?
No, not at all, they just keep getting better and better. What I noticed is that it will get to a good rolling boil for about 10 seconds, and then the surface of the wort will be rolling slightly for a few seconds, almost like nothing is going on, and then the boil comes rolling back up again, and is sustained for 10 seconds. I'm thinking it has to be the heat getting pulled out of the top sides when it's cold out. I have had a hot break before, that is why this is aggravating.
Burners are fairly cheap, this one cost me 69$ at Home depot, and the Kick a burner is on 84 dollars online, I need 2 burners eventually anyway, I just want to get the best one I can.
Well the good news is that I figured out a few batches ago that my regulator just needed to be adjusted, and by adjusted I mean slapped around a few times, it seems some paint flakes where hindering propane flow.
Now a new problem, The kegs that I got don't fit on this burner. The bottom of the keg goes right over my ring guard that supports the kettle on the burner itself. What the F&*k. so in other words the convex bottom of the keg is directly on the 3 wire guards right above the burner, not that that's a big deal, but it's very wobbly. Has anyone run into this situation? anyway to fix it?
You're using the Bayou Classic high pressure jet burner, right?
That's the one that I bought and ran into the exact same problem with my converted keg vessels. It seems very dangerous to me to have a large amount of boiling hot liquid sitting on a wobbly surface. I don't use mine anymore for this reason. I would say that at this point your only option would be to go back to the original topic of this post: Time to get a new burner! Cheers!
I've heard of keg burners having that problem. I'm not sure what you can do to make a bigger surface on the burner. If you have any scrap metal, and know a welder you can mickey-mouse a burner frame extension. I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable with a wobbly keg. Especially once the boil really gets rolling, it could shake it right off. It would suck, even more than the yankees if you turned around to get hops or something and the keg tipped off the burner...
sorry to toss that one in there....it was a pretty shitty for Boston sports last night....
Yea, it's not a bayou, but i's a similar version, a new burner for sure, and use this one to heat my hot liquor tank on my RIMS system. It's about a year away, but still within reach. Ha ha.
I have they bayou high pressure burner and i have a solution for anyone that needs a way to make the keg fit on the top. I put my keg upside down and my keggle on top of it got it where it fits just right and I mean the rim of the keg right directly on the rim of the bayou stand. I then got some metal clothes hangers and cut them, wrapped them around the bottom rim of the stand and through the hole in the bottom lip of the keggle. I then took some cline pliers and twistedthe metal wire until it was deathly tight, did the same thing for the other side and bam!!! solid keg and platform. the only problem is it cannot be removed ever unless you want to repeat this painstaking process but thats why we have two burners or the kitchen stove for our sparge water. hope this helps.
BT
So you can never remove the keggle? am I reading this right? I'm sorry, I have a short attention span, maybe i'm reading it wrong.
Its not that you can never take it off its that if you do you have to be prepared to spend about 20-30 min and 2 metal wire coat hangers to get it back on perfect again.
BT
Hmm, yea, I see where that would work, but it must make cleaning it a pain in the ass. I think I'll just get another burner, less pain in the ass. Not that bad though, this is the first equipment error that I've had. I wouldn't have even bought this one, but I needed it for the weekend, and that's all they had at home depot.
yeah if your gonna get another go for a different but the high psi burner i get 6 gallons of water boiling in right at 10 min its great. the only problem other than not being able to remove is that it is a pain to lug around and i built a stand and had to include that as it own entity not a part of the stand because its one unit.
BT
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