Beer Forum

How big and powerful of a burner would I need to make a 225 liter (59 gallon) batch of beer?
All grain, OG of approximately 1.050

Holy Shit!!!

Would you even want to bother with one burner? I've just began brewing but I would imagine that the pot would be big enough to accomodate several burners at once. Probably a more efficient bet.

We are currently trying to resolve the issue of boiling this much wort. I work at a winery and all the cellarhands are beer drinkers but they have jobs making wine so they are interested in making beer. The problem is that we have a lot of vats but they are HUGE. I think the smallest one we can use is like 3000 liters. It looks like you could fit a mini cooper inside it.

My personal unit is 165,000 btus (15 psi) and will raise 5 gallons 18 degrees in 2.5 minutes. I directly heat my MT but only run it at .25 power doing constant recirc. I had a friend that had a 10 bbl kettle with a 1,000,000 btu (commercial pressure 40 psi I think) and he never ran it above 1/2 power. Look at available gas source (natural gas) pressure then start looking for a burner and decide your need for speed or cost effective solution. You could run a propane line but that is usually low pressure (less than 1 psi). Houshold pressure on natural gas is 4 oz. of pressure as a guideline. This is all due to regulations but drives what kind of burner to look for.
May the Force be with you Luke....

ziggy wrote:We are currently trying to resolve the issue of boiling this much wort. I work at a winery and all the cellarhands are beer drinkers but they have jobs making wine so they are interested in making beer. The problem is that we have a lot of vats but they are HUGE. I think the smallest one we can use is like 3000 liters. It looks like you could fit a mini cooper inside it.

It takes a lot of good beer to make great wine.

maybe start on a smaller scale?

This is a one-off deal, a vintage brew. We are having trouble finding a vessel in which to boil right now so we might be making a smaller batch.