Any opinions on using a 270,000 BTU propane burner for boiling four to six gallons of wort? Too easy to scorch the wort with so much heat available? Could I scrape by with 150,000 BTU? Or 100,000 BTU? Have bought nothing yet; I want to hear from the experts among us…
I can boil 7.5 gallons of wort with a 72,000 BTU propane burner. I can boil 8.5 gallons when doing a 90 min. boil. 270,000 seems a bit much IMHO.
You don’t need to use the burner on high. Boil some water at medium heat and see how long that takes.
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Agree I have a “jet” turkey fryer burner I bought years ago and I don’t think I have ever ran it in high
I use a 65000 BTU burner and never need to max it out either (4-7 Gal batches)
I saw a listing for one of the “jet” burners on amazon, or wherever I saw it. It looked like the flame coming out of the burner was around two inches in diameter and shot-up from the burner by several inches. I passed on that one because my thinking was there’d be way, way too much heat in just one small area-- even with an aluminum heat-spreader of eleven inches in diameter by about 4mm thick being in-place. I’m looking for a banjo burner type of around six inches in diameter. I figger that should be big enough to cause the flame to spread-out over the majority of the heat-spreader and to provide good heat across the entire area of the kettle.
I have 100K propane burners under my HLT, mash tun, and boil kettle. They seem about right to do the job. If you look around at various places that sell grill equipment, you can find an adjustable pressure regulator that will limit the amount of propane that reaches the burner to control the heat level. I got mine at Rural King and IIRC Agri Supply in NC also sells them and you can mail order from them (I buy my burners from them). That way you don’t have to swap out your burners.