Natural gas burner?

[Oliver]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a bit of advice.

With my imminent move to AG/BIAB, I am weighing up the options with burners.

I could go electric. The extra cost doesn't really bother me too much. What does concern me a little is the ability to get a good rolling boil of 30 or so litres with a single immersion element.

Some suggest using two, which leads me to a second concern, which is that my house is old and even though it's been rewired I am still a bit wary, even the elements they were running off different circuits.

Or perhaps I'm just being paranoid.

(Then there's the fact that electricity and wort don't mix

The other two options are gas burners. Gas bottles is option 1, but I am thinking of going natural gas because there's an outlet next to the BBQ/brewing area. That will make it much more convenient (and cheaper) than bottles.

So, the questions:

1. For those of you who use electric immersion heaters, can you get a good rolling boil from only one element?

2. Am I worrying unnecessarily about burning the house down by using an electric immersion heater.

3. If anyone is running their burner off natural gas:
a) How do you find it?
b) What sort of burner do you have?
c) Do you have any tips?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Cheers,

Oliver

[speedie]

natural gas has a different nozzle(oriface) so the only real world difference is it is slighly cooler
butt it still burns your hand

[SuperBroo]

Hi Oliver,

I started with a gas burner, and migrated about 6 months ago to a 40L Birko electric urn.

I would never go back to gas now.

I BIAB and it is so easy now to brew, I wish I had started out this way initially.

I ran out of gas a few times, stuffing around lighting it and making tin shields etc, and being unable to leave it for fear of it going out etc.

Electric IS SAFER.

I disconnected the thermostat in the urn, and I set my temp control to 101 degrees with the temp probe thrunthe side of the urn using a stainless thermowell from grain and grape which cost about 30 bucks.

The advantanges I see in going electric are...
- Safer, no gas blowouts.
- MUCH easier for controlling temperature especially if you Biab its easy to hold mash temp.
- No gas bottles to run out and mess around filling.
- Cheaper to just buy a 40L birko on ebay than a 40L pot, gas burner, regulator etc.
- You can wrap insulation around the urn when you biab and leave it there while you do a qik reheat, with gas you have the risk of the flames burning insulation etc.
- You can safely leave the urn while its boiling and tend the hops garden etc, no way u can do that with gas.
- You can mow the lawn while its boiling and score points with the cheese and kisses
- I have never had a problem with scorching, and mine has exposed element and I do light beers.

As said, I wish I had seen an electric brew before I bought gas stuff etc.

I will sell my gas stuff now, including mash tun etc.

I will post some pics of my setup if you like.

Cheers,
Chris

[SuperBroo]

sorry Oliver,
Also meant to say I have no trouble getting a nice rolling boil.

If you insulated the urn you could get quite a vigorous boil happening no probs.

If you do this, go the birko 40 litre and don't even think about chinese cheapo, the welds leak etc etc, I found this out on a 20 litre urn ages ago.

Cheers,
Chris

[Oliver]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for all the info. I hadn't actually considered an urn (I was just thinking hand-held immersion element) but it seems like it's a good option.

Thanks for the offer of posting pics. I'd really appreciate it if you could.

I'm very keen to get cracking on BIAB

Cheers,

Oliver

[jello]

I'm very keen to get cracking on BIAB

You and me both! However, the treasurer definitely won't allow it.

So you plan on boiling the entire batch? How would you cool that safely?

[Oliver]

So you plan on boiling the entire batch? How would you cool that safely?

Option 1 = No-chill. At flameout transfer the wort to a cube and allow it to cool naturally then transfer to the fermenter and pitch yeast. There's a lot of debate about this method, including how much adjustment needs to be made to hop additions because the bittering effect of the hops is increased by the greater period that the wort is hot (even though the hops may not still be in the wort).

Option 2 = Use the immersion chiller that Geoff's father-in-law made for the Millennium Ale Project. In hindsight we would have added more coils to make it more efficient, but it should do the trick.

Cheers,

Oliver

[SuperBroo]

I use both no chill, and chill coil cooling methods depending on how much time / storage space i have.

using no chill, plus biab and an electric urn, its easy to knock up a quick brew, only having the bag and urn to clean afterwards. Then you can ferment it later quite easily.

Oliver, I am going home shortly to do some Lathe work, and it just so happens I will be brewing a Stout at the same time.
I will take plenty of pics, and post here later in a separate thread.

Cant wait for the stout, never done a dark beer before, and looking forward to the aroma.

When I no chill, I have backed the hop additions off by about 10 minutes.
Any 0 minute hop additions go straight into the cube just prior to filling.

I use whirlfloc still, but i dont care at all about break going into the cube, and I tip the whole cube, hops, break and all into the primary fermenter.

I must say I am getting very nice, light, clear beers, and I havent noticed any negative changes since doing 3v, chiller cube brews.
However I am also more patioent now, I add finings at end of secondary, then chill at 1 - 2 deg c for at least 2 weeks before kegging. I've had no need for filtering when I do this.

I do however only primary for a max of 7 days, and then tranfer to a secondary fermenter.

I certainly dont miss 3v brewing / sparging / all those calculations and trying to have hot water on standby etc.

cheers,
Chris.

[squirt in the turns]

+1 to everything Chris has said, especially going with an urn as the kettle. If you don't already have a decent pot, burner, etc, then it's the cheapest and easiest way to boil 30+ L of wort. Crown is the other big Aussie producer of these, and the one I happen to use. Hasn't let me down yet.

I would definitely give BIAB a go if I had somewhere to hang a pulley to raise the bag. As it is I do quite nicely with an esky mash tun. The urn is both my HLT and kettle. The sparge water gets run into the cube at 80+ degrees and is wrapped in a blanket, staying hot until needed, while I drain the mash directly into the urn.

Oliver, you might as well try that chiller, especially if you have access to rainwater to run through it. Has it been used since 2001? If not, it seems like a lot of effort for a beer that “Tastes like Ximenez that's gone bubbly.”

[rotten]

Don't listen to those lazy biabers Oliver

I just bought an Italian Spiral burner, LPG though not natural gas so can't comment there, although I beleive it's just different jets. I did a trial run a few days ago and went from 10c, to boiling in 20 odd minutes, not bad if you ask me. That's using a 50 ltr keg. I also have one of the better cheap urns, it served me well for 12 months as a HLT and kettle. I have now added a 2200 W weldless element from craftbrewer, it goes from 10c to sparge temp, 85c usually, in 30 mins. So that's 2 X 2200 W elements in there now. It used to take an hour, it will be my HLT only now. I chose gas for my kettle to achieve better control, electricity can be touchy and it takes much longer to rectify it. Haven't used my plate chiller yet as I haven't brewed for a few months now

I'm having withdrawls

I had problems with no-chill so I decided it's not for me. My fault though I'm sure. I personally really enjoy brewing 3V, it's not all about time for me, it's relaxation (mainly)

My 2c
Cheers

[Oliver]

Thanks for your input and suggestions, chaps.

I've done a bit more investigation about electric urns, and I'm leaning that way over gas In fact, I think I've decided to do it. One of the pluses is that even if I decide to go 3V down the track I can use the urn as a HLT.

Having decided to go with the urn, the next question is Crown or Birko.

Both are Australian made, which I like.

From doing the further reading, I can sum up the pros and cons thus:

CROWN
Pro:
* Concealed element means that cleaning is easier.
* Being a concealed element, does not require the element to be protected to prevent damage to the BIAB bag.

Con:
* Seems to require the boil-dry cut-out to be bypassed to ensure a good rolling boil. This is possibly due to the element not heating the wort directly, but the element heating the base of the urn then that in turn heating the wort.
* It would seem that bypassing the boil-dry cut-out increases the risk of the element burning out.
* More expensive (circa $275 for the cheapest I can find on the net), although price is not a huge consideration for me.

BIRKO
Pro:
* Cheaper option (circa $240).
* Can be used straight out of the box, more or less.
* Good rolling boil can be achieved, possibly due to the entire element being exposed to the wort.

Con:
* Exposed element means that steps have to be taken to prevent damage to the BIAB bag. However, this can be done simply by various methods. (I'd rather do this than mess around with electrics, which it seems you need to do with the Crown.)

So, what to do?

Oliver, you might as well try that chiller, especially if you have access to rainwater to run through it. Has it been used since 2001? If not, it seems like a lot of effort for a beer that “Tastes like Ximenez that's gone bubbly.”

+1

No, it hasn't been used since the Millennium Ale brewing. I think I'll run tap water through it into the washing machine. We don't have a rainwater tank, although it's on the cards.

Thanks again guys.

Oliver

[squirt in the turns]

CROWN
Pro:
* Concealed element means that cleaning is easier.
* Being a concealed element, does not require the element to be protected to prevent damage to the BIAB bag.

Con:
* Seems to require the boil-dry cut-out to be bypassed to ensure a good rolling boil. This is possibly due to the element not heating the wort directly, but the element heating the base of the urn then that in turn heating the wort.
* It would seem that bypassing the boil-dry cut-out increases the risk of the element burning out.
* More expensive (circa $275 for the cheapest I can find on the net), although price is not a huge consideration for me.

Crown make an exposed element urn too, which is the one I went for as I'd read about the problems with the boil-dry protection feature on the concealed element version. It was also $15 cheaper at Craftbrewer. Cleaning would probably be easier with the concealed element, but other than that, I don't see any advantages. I would say forget the concealed element one, and go with either the Crown or the Birko, whichever you can get cheapest.

To avoid burning the bag, I believe many BIABers place a cake cooling rack over the element to stop the bag touching it.

[Oliver]

Thanks SITT. I was pretty much thinking along the exact same lines.

I have read references to the Crown exposed element urn, but can't find it on the Crown website. I'll have to make some further inquiries. Seems that whatever's cheapest between it and the Birko will win.

Or can you point me in the direction of the exposed-element Crown urn on the web?

Cheers,

Oliver

[squirt in the turns]

You're just down the road from Grain and Grape, right Oliver?
http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=8892

[Oliver]

Hmm. Google would have been my friend there

Also, there's some discussion in this thread about exposed versus concealed elements. Bullfrog came to a similar conclusion to me.

Perhaps on his return he'd be good enough to expand on his experiences so far with the exposed element

Cheers,

Oliver