Electronic gas pilot starter thingy

[Hamish Jones]

not sure what it is called, I currently use a gas pilot light that is used to start the gas burner when it gets below a set temp, now I have found a wee issue I just upgraded my regulator as the low pressure one was just useless, now I am finding on hot days that my pilot light heats up the mash tun so I have to take off the lid and stir to get a constant temp,

It got me thinking about having an electronic flint starter sort of thing that could be triggered when my solenoid opens for the gas burner, is anyone using something similar that they could point me in the right direction on please?

cheers

[Druid]

Google the gas solenoid setup that is used on the Brutus 10 brewing system - some of them use a system that doesn't use a pilot light and instead uses ignition control

There's a good thread on it here. Best comments start 4 or 5 down - http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=&t=29928...

[Hamish Jones]

its hard to know what to look for when you don't know the name of what you need, I will have a read as it looks like they are discussing what I am after, cheers

[Karl Hayes]

Hi Hamish.

The piezo electric arc lighters are a bit fiddly. Ideally you'll want something foolproof so you won't want to supervise the mash

I don't know if you're open to alternative suggestions, but I'd recommend looking at:

• Getting an adjustable pilot flame nozzle, or one meant for high pressure, and re-positioning it further away from the pot
• Using alternative methods, HERMS or RIMS to heat your mash - the recirculation benefits are pretty big too.

Cheers.

[Peter Smith]

I have to replace the honeywell gas valve on my spa heater,  Anything unattended is quite complex having an igniter a heat sensor and enough logic to turn the gas back off if it doesn't ignite.  The one I need is about 350nzd but all it needs is a 50V in to turn on heat,  totally self contained unit,  if after a few ignition attempts it doesn't detect heat it goes into a shutdown sequence.

[Hamish Jones]

Yeah I suppose an LPG fuelled inferno in the shed would require some explaining if I got it wrong, maybe I play around with my pilot first and see if I can tweak it to run a bit slower

[Hamish Jones]

Yeah I do like the reliability of the gas pilot but since I changed regs to stop my pot sooting up the pilots gone and got all efficient, maybe I just brew on crappy cold days, I am keen as mustard to go to a 3v herms but I have got to get that past the boss first, definitely open to ideas that's the great thing about brew plant tweaking its an on going evolution

[mattd2]

Firstly I don't use LPG so I am not really one to be giving advice, but I have heard of guys in the US using hot surface ignition, basically like a glow plug I guess to get you diesel started.

I can't get on ebay at work but google returned this hit www.ebay.com%2Fbhp%2Fhot-surface-igniter&ei=9QVbUtC0CcvtiAeJkYH...

Again fon't know if you would need additional safety circuits to check that you actually get a flame.

[Hamish Jones]

Yeah might revisit my reg, it might be easier than burning down the shed, was cleaning up today after a late brew last night and as the gas got down in the bottle the burner went out as I had turned the pressure down, hmm lpg filled shed isn't good, glad I didn't have a smoke lit

[Sam Anderson]

Have you asked the guys at Combustion Control ? (better to visit than phone, they are in Church Street, Onehunga) 

I've bought my dual gas bottle - single burner rig from them and found them to be really useful in terms of help. They have alot of parts there -  and would likely be good to ask.