BeerBorg

ok so I got an earlier start... had the burner in full shade.. overcast... lo and behold I saw the flame. I may not have been cranking it up high enough and hence the long boil time. blue jets were only just off the ports.. tiny flames. next time adding more juice. I guess my fear of boil over and no idea of control levels for heat made me err on the side of caution and only gave the regulator barely 180 degrees of turn. man this thing is quiet while running!



I was doing a saison.. lots of wind :/ about 10 minutes into a moderate rolling boil I hear FWHOOOOOOOSH! and the fire went out. good nite celeste, I cant be out of propane already??! no, just wind. got it fired back up. after an hour of cooking, only lost about barely .5 gallons out of 3. hmm...

anywho... despite the following trying to end up in my wort things went ok: 3 leaves, 2 wasps, 1 honey bee, 1 large dragon fly, 1 fat whitefly, and a tree helicopter seed.

good thing I had 2 gals of headspace. im letting it go where it wants temperature wise... pitched a full pack of yeast. checked it before work. I have about 4 inches of krausen! it is bubbling away . missed my og by a little. 1.042 instead of 1.049 corrected.

propane experiment 2 - I'm gonna label it mostly successful.

question. . . why does blichmann only give you a 10 psi regulator? granted I may have the setting too low, but wouldn't a higher psi regulator be better?

10 psi is ridiculously high for a propane burner

30 psi seems to be the standard for most turkey fryers with the single jet ring burner. The Blichmann is a banjo type burner. Lots of small jets to cover the entire surface of the kettle. I find that the 10psi to more that adequate. I get boil overs doing 10 batches. I get the wort to a roiling boil in 10 - 15 mins. This burner takes a little bit to get use to. I am generally get 1 1/2 batches per tank. The burner also heats the sparge water that is used as the heat exchanger for the recirculation. I own my tanks and take them to a gas yard to get them filled. When it is time to replace the tank take to an exchange place. I know that here the exchange places can only fill their tanks to 75%

PS make a wind guard for the burner.

I bought a VERY good false bottom for my 15 gallon pot and it helps with the boil a bit to stop the heavy rolling boils that happen. I can't prove it but since I started using it, the roiling boil is more even and steady.
About the only downside I see is that it doesn't do as well in the wind as the 'el cheapos' do since the individual jets are small. However, you're not going to get a good boil with any burner in the wind.

OK, a bit off topic but an addition to my comment about using the false bottom with a blichmann.....from the manual:
"It is not suitable or recommended for use as a boil screen since it will impede the convective flow of a full rolling boil and may lead to scorching of the wort."

Since it really doesn't help me so much containing the junk, I'll just remove it after the mash when I remove my bag and see how much difference it makes. I've not noticed any problem with scorching. The distance between the jets and the pot are much further apart than most burners though there are so many jets, that could be the point.

braukasper wrote: I am generally get 1 1/2 batches per tank.

Wow, that seems a bit low but then again you are doing 10g batches. Before I started steeping and heating mash water indoors, the minimum I got was around 5 for a 5g and still had quite a bit left. I tend to top off my tank at 5 batches since I gave my backup tank to Think One for his grill.

And yes, if you find a place that refills you will save quite a bit over the long run than the exchange places.

In my area Uhaul does refills and you pay by the pound and I get a full tank, not like the 3.75 lbs you get with the exchange. That's about an extra boil for me.

DaYooper wrote:

braukasper wrote: I am generally get 1 1/2 batches per tank.

Wow, that seems a bit low but then again you are doing 10g batches. Before I started steeping and heating mash water indoors, the minimum I got was around 5 for a 5g and still had quite a bit left. I tend to top off my tank at 5 batches since I gave my backup tank to Think One for his grill.

And yes, if you find a place that refills you will save quite a bit over the long run than the exchange places.

I am also doing 90 min boils. I use pilsner malt a lot. Remember to that there is the 60 to 90 minutes of heating water for the HERMS. When I was doing just boils I got quite a few out of a tank.

DaYooper wrote:

braukasper wrote: I am generally get 1 1/2 batches per tank.

Wow, that seems a bit low but then again you are doing 10g batches. Before I started steeping and heating mash water indoors, the minimum I got was around 5 for a 5g and still had quite a bit left. I tend to top off my tank at 5 batches since I gave my backup tank to Think One for his grill.

And yes, if you find a place that refills you will save quite a bit over the long run than the exchange places.

I was doing some research on this just a couple of weeks ago. I get raped every time I exchange my 20lb cylinders. Paying better than $7.25 a gallon (considering LP weighs 4.2lb per gallon and that I'm actually getting only 15lb in a 20lb cylinder).

Then I had the propane guy drop off a 100lb cylinder to run the heater in my shop/garage. He charged me $3.57 a gallon. I asked him if it had a true 100lb in the cylinder and he told me yes. So then I asked him why my dad paid $1.75 a gallon to fill his 500 gallon tank. He said that if I wanted to drop a 500 gallon tank in my yard (not allowed) he could sell it to me at about that price.

Then I asked him why they were filling the 20lb cylinders to only 75% capacity. He said it was to allow for expansion. But even at 100% capacity there still 20% head space just for that reason and that was also the reason everyone had to go out ant get new cylinders with the new valves that won't allow the cylinder to be filled beyond the 80% cylinder total capacity. He just shrugged and said that was what all the venders were doing and he has to stay competitive with them. He also recommended that if you're using several 20lb cylinders in a year you would be much better off getting your cylinders refilled rather than exchanged.