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Post #2 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
Good stuff Brendan!

(I see joshua gave you a good answer here to your last question on costs. I think his prices work out pretty nicely here as well.)

As to gas or electric, I think you'll nearly always find gas a better option in your situation although there are exceptions. A three-ring burner (not a four-ring) would do you perfectly well for a keg and these are cheap. However, with these burners, your issue will be how you will get the burner underneath the keg as the normal height is pretty low I reckon.

Other burners are around and some include a stand. Italian spiral burners are great. See what you find and post it here.

Preferably try and buy an adjustable regulator as well. This will allow you to easily control the flame and tends to give a bit more power than a normal reg.

:peace:
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 25 Jun 2012, 20:40, edited 4 times in total.
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Post #3 made 14 years ago
by hashie
PistolPatch wrote:Good stuff Brendan!



A three-ring burner (not a four-ring) would do you perfectly well for a keg and these are cheap. However, with these burners, your issue will be how you will get the burner underneath the keg as the normal height is pretty low I reckon.



:peace:
PP
Interesting response PP. Why not a 4 ring burner?
I find a 4 ring burner fits my keggle perfectly, the chime sits on the outer edge of the burner like it was made to fit.

Just curious on your rationale.
Last edited by hashie on 26 Jun 2012, 06:17, edited 4 times in total.
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #5 made 14 years ago
by hashie
That looks the goods Brendandrage, it will do everything you need it to.

As PP said earlier, you might also like to get a medium pressure regulator. This may help to speed things up if you find heating a little slow.

I am using a 4 ring burner on a standard regulator and get an increase in temperature of 1°C per minute with 37 litres of water in the kettle.

You should get similar heating from a 3 ring.
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #6 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
I think maybe wait to hear what the guys with kegs say Brendan because I have a stockpot and things may behave differently???
hashie wrote:
PistolPatch wrote:Good stuff Brendan!



A three-ring burner (not a four-ring) would do you perfectly well for a keg and these are cheap. However, with these burners, your issue will be how you will get the burner underneath the keg as the normal height is pretty low I reckon.



:peace:
PP
Interesting response PP. Why not a 4 ring burner?
I find a 4 ring burner fits my keggle perfectly, the chime sits on the outer edge of the burner like it was made to fit.

Just curious on your rationale.
I'm a bit rusty on this hashie as it happened a few years ago now. Here's what I think happened anyway :scratch:...

I found the pot sat too close to the flame so I built a stand that allowed the burner to sit just above the top of the blue of the flame. Even with the three-ring, I can still have flame going up the sides of the 45cm kettle so that's why I was assuming a 4 ring would be too big for a keg.

Maybe with the convex base of the keg, it stops that happening? Certainly something I've never thought about before.

:think:
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 26 Jun 2012, 17:45, edited 4 times in total.
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Post #7 made 14 years ago
by Brendandrage
hashie wrote:That looks the goods Brendandrage, it will do everything you need it to.

As PP said earlier, you might also like to get a medium pressure regulator. This may help to speed things up if you find heating a little slow.

I am using a 4 ring burner on a standard regulator and get an increase in temperature of 1°C per minute with 37 litres of water in the kettle.

You should get similar heating from a 3 ring.
Thanks for the response guys and just so im clear hashie a three ring burner with a medium pressure reg will give me enough performance to brew a final volume of 23 litres in a keg in a reasonable time?
Last edited by Brendandrage on 26 Jun 2012, 18:28, edited 4 times in total.

Post #8 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
Be interesting to find out from hashie what the diameter/s are of his four ring because this could be critical for you.

My three ring has a 21cm diameter for the outside ring while the 'stand' part is 24.5cm. The 24.5cm I think, will be too small for your keg?

As for heating, I nearly always do double batches and so am boiling close to 70L. The three-ring does this fine and takes only slightly longer than my Italian spiral burner - around 25 minutes from mash-out to boil on a double batch. However, Grain and Grape say here that a three ring burner will only boil 23 L which brings us to...

I think the keys to any ring burner are...

1. Buy a medium pressure adjustable regulator.
2. Before you brew, fire it up so all the paint gets burned off. (Do this with any burner).
3. Then clean each of the holes with a small drill bit of the right size.

I only did 3 above after a few brews as I noticed a real drop off in performance. I have never had to do it since though I might do it again now after all these years as a matter of interest.

A mate of mine uses a four-ring on his 90L stock-pot so I think you'll definitely be okay power-wise.

Looking forward to hashie's thoughts on all this.

:peace:
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 26 Jun 2012, 20:25, edited 4 times in total.
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Post #9 made 14 years ago
by Brendandrage
Thanks PP i dont want to spend a bucket of money on a burner so three ring it is for me and ill make a simple stand pretty easy, i cant beleive how much comflicting information there is out there on this subject :argh:
I will post when i have made the purchase and done the test boil.

Cheers

Post #10 made 14 years ago
by hashie
PistolPatch wrote:
1. Buy a medium pressure adjustable regulator.
2. Before you brew, fire it up so all the paint gets burned off. (Do this with any burner).
3. Then clean each of the holes with a small drill bit of the right size.

I only did 3 above after a few brews as I noticed a real drop off in performance. I have never had to do it since though I might do it again now after all these years as a matter of interest.


:peace:
PP
This is the best advice for anyone using a gas burner, ever!

#3 makes such a huge difference and is so easy to do.

PP, my largest burner ring (ring 4) is 330mm Diameter and my keg has an external diameter of 360mm. This means that the chime of the keg sits nicely on the lugs outside of the 4th ring. I still get flames up the side of the pot when it operates on full, but don't see this as a waste or a problem.

I can heat 37 litres of strike water to 65°C from 'tap' temperature in ~20 minutes and can get from mashout to boil in 10-15 minutes depending on weather.
Last edited by hashie on 27 Jun 2012, 06:01, edited 4 times in total.
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #11 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
Brendan, from what hashie says, the 4 ring could well be better. Would save mucking around building a stand etc etc and I don't think they are that much more expensive either. Maybe you can find some pics on some forums somewhere of kettles and their burners?

:scratch: :think:
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Post #12 made 14 years ago
by grogmonster
Brendandrage,

Check out ebay for your burners under "LPG Gas Burners" as there are some reasonable prices to be found. There are also the the 4 burner frame aavailable at the moment to enable you sit your pot on top of. These are fairly hard to find and only pop up every now and then so could be a reasonable investment... I have a Keggle and a 4 burner is perfect and for the extra couple of bucks I highly recommend the 4 burner. You can use the 4 burner as a 3 burner you cant use a 3 burner as a 4 burner!!

Post #13 made 14 years ago
by Brendandrage
Thanks for all the info guys this has been a real eye opener and from what i can see a three burner will do the job but a four burner is optimal for the job. Thats the info i was looking for so thats great.

Cheers
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