Really quiet and really fast. I wish I could meet a woman like it.
Well Blichmann’s always making advances… 
Slowly backs away …
I fired up my Blichmann for the first time today, too. Dang thing is near silent. Library quiet, at least.
Did you have any trouble adjusting the flame? (Regulator vs. air louvre) It seemed OK at first but the temp stalled at around 160F so I started messing with it, don’t know if that helped any. Overall it seemed a bit slow to get 5 gallons up to a boil.
I was getting a lot of heat wash around the bottom of the kettle, not so much farther up. Could barely touch the valve handle despite it having a heat shield attached.
If that burner seems slow, you don’t have it adjusted right. Play with the air to get a nice clean blue flame with little or no yellow on the tips, then open that needle valve and step back. It does throw a fairly large flame pattern so adjust to make sure the flame stays under your pot not licking up the side. I made a piece of flashing that forms a semi circle about an inch out and around 3/4 of my pot (not the valve or sight glass/thermometer area).
This helps tremendously with the heating in that it redirects the very hot air up the sides of the kettle instead of out, further saving heating time and fuel.
You may have a bad batch of propane too.
Mine brought my wort to a boil so fast I couldn’t slow it down before getting a major boil over. It was so quiet it was deceptive. when it hit 200 I throttled back about a quarter of the way. That wasn’t near enough. It will take some getting used to but once I do I am going to love this thing. For one thing once the boil was going I could not believe the precision I could control it with. 7 gallons of liquid was simply too small of amount for it. No challenge for it at all. Once I get a feel for the thing I think it will save me not only time, but propane as well.
There’s a good youtube vid from blichmann on adjusting the flame. In a nutshell, you don’t want yellow tips and you don’t want the flame “jumping” up from the burner.
Man this almost made me spit out my lunch. Love my blichman burner as well. It’s definately a huge improvement over my Bayou Classic SP10 in every way.
So, is the burner used in the Blichmann basically the same thing as a Bayou Classic KAB4? Looks like it from the pics.
It sure does look like it.
Actually, a guy in my club confirmed that they’re the same.
They are the same; or so close I cant tell the difference. My first burner was the bayou sp10. Lasted about 12+ yrs before the cast iron port just crumbled where the gas line ties in. Bought a banjo burner thinking it would fit the stand. It didn’t. Bought a Blinchman cause that’s what my LHBS had in stock and noticed right away it was the same burner as the new banjo I had at home. So, bought it off the shelf and sold the extra on to a buddy.
Don’t know who actually casts the burner, but it appears he’s selling to both Bayou and Blinchman.
Got a KAB6 today, take it that this is the same burner and holy smokes is it hot. Worked awesome on a 15 gal boil. Had the first runnings boiling before I got the sparge done. Very happy so far.
reading the product description on northern brewer it seems to be that the blichman is all stainless while the kab4 is cast iron. I don’t know if this is actually true but either it is and that explains the price difference or it isn’t and northern brewer is doing some serious false advertising.
The blichman I bought is in a SS frame. The burner itself is cast iron. I’d love to have a ss burner for the longevity; probably the weight, too. Not sure what the weight difference is with ss, but it could be thinner-walled than cast iron which would probably keep the weight down.
I believe both burners are cast by a company in Valencia Ca. called Hurricane Products found here:
http://stores.hurricaneproducts.net/StoreFront.bok
Slightly off topic but still good info…Regarding the Blichmann vs KAB4 comparisons, in my experience the KAB4 won’t perform like the Blichmann without a major modification (which I did and am very happy with). I bought a KAB4 expecting fast boil times (in my keggle) and it took forever and 1/2 tank of propane. I did a little research and found that the KAB4 is optimized for a flat bottom pot. If you’re using a keggle, the bottom of the pot is pretty far from the flame so you lose most of your heat to the air & around the sides. If you brew in the winter, you’ll have a nice warm garage & cool water :P The Blichmann burner is a couple of inches higher so it works better on a keggle. To “fix” the KAB4, I used an angle grinder to take the legs off and had a friend re-weld the burner about 1" from the top of the legs. Then he welded flat steel to extend the top surface so that it holds the keggle and I don’t have to worry about 10 gallons of hot water falling off of the burner. I could only find a picture of the burner frame, but you’ll get the idea. I hope this advice helps someone who’s trying to decide between Blichmann & a KAB4.
You know what’s most impressive about this?
It’s his first post and he already figured out how to add a picture!
Blichmann’s website only says stainless steel frame.
I’ve noticed there is a large gap on my KAB6 between the windscreen and pot. Even a little wind blows the heat away from the kettle and makes it hard to boil. Blichmann’s windscreen has a smaller gap. I like the mod above, might have to try that.