Jet Burners

[GuitarLord5000]

Hey yeastmeister, how have those jet burners been working out for you? Do you have problems with lighting them, or does a pilot work well? I've seen some posts from folks who say they had to hook up some sort of fan or something to get all the jets to light.

I found these chinese jet burners:
http://www.sangkung.com/Itemdesc.asp?Ca ... BJ005&tpc=
for a decent price. I'm gonna see what they charge for shipping. If it's reasonable, I might get them. If not, I'll probably stick to some banjos. I just wanted to hear what you think of them, since you are the only one I know who uses them.

Cheers,
Dave

[yeastmeister]

Well, to be honest, I seem to be the only guy who isn't having problems with them. Not sure why, but mine work just fine. Sure, they require a little maintenance and cleaning every once and a while, but I had the same problems with banjo burners.

I'm sure Aleguy will pipe up and say how poorly they work, but I couldn't be happier with mine. Be aware, that there are several types of jet burners. Some are for natural gas, some are for high pressure propane, some are for low pressure propane. High pressure is basically the external portable propane bottles. Typically, low pressure is household internal pressure.

I have both kinds in my system. The ones on my stand are low pressure, whereas the ones that are on my external burners are high pressure.

They light fine from the pilot lights, although you will find that the kettle generally needs to be on top of the burner for that to work.

[aleguy]

They also soot up your kettle if you turn them down. Honestly the $8 rose burner kicks 170,000 BTU which is plenty for home brewing. I've never had a problem with mine except that I didn't know how to use it properly. I haven't got the gas lines in on my new stand yet, but the rose burner in my crawfish boiler works great with no real maintenance.

[yeastmeister]

They also soot up your kettle if you turn them down.

Agreed, but that only happens on my boil kettle. I always had similar problems even with my banjo burners. Any time the flame turns yellow, your producing soot. I'm not afraid of the small amount of soot produced. I scrub the kettle down anyway, so the extra 10 seconds it takes to wipe away the soot while I am cleaning the sides and bottom doesn't bother me.

[aleguy]

I have never gotten soot. I have never had any yellow flames no matter how low I turn my burner.

[david79thomas]

I have banjo burners and you have to do some fine tuning to the wheel infront of the burner that lets air in. You can get the perfect flame that way and no sut with large blue flames. Anyone know how to measure BTU's? I'd like to know what I really get compared to what's advertised. I know there's variances with temperature and gas pressure, but is there a guage or meter that measures the output in BTU's?

[aleguy]

I don't think there's any way to measure your actual output at the home scale. I do know that the big 109-inch banjos are designed to kick 210,000 BTUs on low-pressure propane. They work just fine on high-pressure propane, but I would guess the output is at least double at about 30 PSI.

[david79thomas]

I do know that the big 109-inch banjos are designed to kick 210,000 BTUs

DANG! 109 inches! That's over 9 feet! Haha one he'll of a burner!

[aleguy]

Ops! 10-inch.