Beer Forum

I've got a half dozen brews in on my new homebuilt system. I takes about 40-45 minutes to heat 6.5 gallons of strike water from 70 to about 163 using banjo BG14's converted to low pressure propane. The low pressure flame is ok....a little lazier than I'd like. I've got the burner about 3.5" below the kettle, I was thinking about raising it up a bit. Does this heat up time sound pretty good? Or a little slow? I don't have anything to compare it to.

That's pretty slow. Probably too slow to really be all that useful but it depends on how you are using the set-up. If you need water to boost a temp and it takes 5 minutes longer than you wanted to do a 15 minute rest it is limiting. Find yourself a jet burner, you will love it.

That is really slow. I can do about twice the water from 55 to 170F in the same time.

I use this:
http://bayouclassicdepot.com/bg10_cast_iron_burner.htm

With this:
http://bayouclassicdepot.com/m5hpr1_pro ... ulator.htm

For me the worst part of the brew day is heating the strike water.

I'll have to look into some options, maybe I'll try a jet burner.

I'm using automated soleniod valves, so I need to use a low pressure burner (.5 psi)

I found a test someone did on YouTube comparing a jet burner to a high pressure banjo and his heat up time was 2-3 F per minute. I'm getting a little over 2

This is going in a completely different direction, but I built a heat stick after reading about Bugeaters version. Essentially it's a water heater element on a long pipe that you insert into the pot. I've got it on a timer to start 3 hours before I want to start brewing. The water will be boiling by then, but I add tap water to get to the strike temp. It's also good enough to heat up my sparge water.

I'm only using propane for the boil kettle.

That's a good idea. I've though about making my mash tun electric some day for that reason. Anything to shed a few minutes from the brew day.