What are you brewing?

[nzbrewer]

Since this is the most popular thread on the RealBeer.co.nz forum I thought I would start it here just to see what happens

[Martin townshend]

Hi,
We use LPG to fire our kettle and get the burners serviced annually. They shouldn't give off any soot. There sholudn't be any orange flame at all: it's a cooler flame. Our burners run with blue flame for max efficiency. They need plenty of air to run blue too.
Cheers, M

[Reviled]

Cheers for that info Martin.. My current burner is just a 2 ring camping burner that I got for free off a mate, and its quite old and the mixture screw is stuffed, thus I get a heap off soot off it :o( Good to know a nice new burner wont do the same!

[Doublehoppy]

I use a 3 ring burner with a medium regulator to heat a convertered SS keg. Man I get a lot of soot off it, and yes there is a bit of orange (as well as blue) flame ! I've tried adjusting the air intakes on the burner but doesn't seem to make any difference.

I just live with it but does anybody know specifically what I could do to improve it. I.e. should I get the burner cleaned or is it something I could do myself?

[Reviled]

Maybe it comes down to the quality of the burner? I imagine Martin isnt using the camping burners you get at bunnings like we are Brett ;o)

[Patrick]

I am interested in this too - I have a cast iron 3-ring burner. I currently use my BBQ regulator, I was thinking about borrowing the one off the inlaws caravan, it looks a lot bigger, I will let you know how it goes. Also, when I first got mine one of the rings wouldn't work at all, so I pulled the air intake apart and it was blocked with grease, so if you haven't had them apart it may be worth a look.

[Doublehoppy]

Agreed Rev, they're pretty basic things alright.

Patrick, I had poor results with a standard BBQ regulator so replaced it with a "medium" type. Not sure about the specs but I can check if you like. I'm happy its performance, other than the soot, which isn't necessarily the regulator? Thanks for the tip on grease.

[Reviled]

Hey Brett, where abouts did ya get the 'medium' regulator from? And how much was it?

[Chris Banks]

One of the big things with the ring burners is getting them enough air in and giving the burnt gas somewhere to go I pulled mine apart and gave it good old port and polish to remove all the casting dingleberrys around the air openings where the lpg nozzles are this made a big difference.

The other thing was sitting a keg straight on top of it tends to smother the flames a bit ithink the shape of the bottom rim captures the burnt gas so its a bit like having a blocked chimney
Raising the keg up of the burner 100mm or so made a big difference here also.

With all that done I now have no soot

If you think its the burner itself try running it on its own it should be possible to get a nice blue flame by adjusting the collars on each nozzle

[Doublehoppy]

Thanks for the tips, I'll try dismantling and cleaning. What's odd is that often when I start the burner I get very very little actual flame, even thou the gas valve is on full and the air intakes fully open. I just fiddle around with the intakes for a while and suddenly the flame blasts right up. So looks like there is some issue with the actual burner.

I totally agree on the importance of head clearance. I've had legs welded onto the bottom of the keg to raise it above the burner. That, and increasing the regulator size made a dramatic difference.

[MrC]

Mashing this as I type:

Belgian Tripel
OG: 1.086
IBU: 36

6.1kg Bohemian Pils
500g Wheat Malt
150g Melanoidin Malt
(Mash until converted)

1.0kg Table Sugar (inverted & added after primary)

(90min boil)
54g Motueka @ 60min
15g Motueka @ 15min

Wyeast 3787 (Trappist High Gravity)
Fermentation starting at 18C increasing to 22C over one week then another week at 22C


This recipe is basically just stepping a Belgian Blonde that I brewed last week to a Tripel.
Same malts, same hops, same water, same BU:GU & same process.
Different yeast, different volumes & different gravities.

[MrC]

Added the inverted sugar to this beer yesterday afternoon and within 3 hours it was foaming out the airlock. Massive krausen on this beer! Currently sitting at 20C and the airlock is still spewing foam.

[MrC]

Just went to check on this beer and lucky for me that I did. The yeastie foam that is oozing from the airlock had dried and blocked up the airlock. The top of the fermenter was bulging so I burped it by openinig the lid slightly. Shhhhhhhh... Could have ended a lot worse. Best I change the airlock.