which burner do you prefer

[Charlie]

The size of the gas aperture is usually your best bet at visually determining whether a burner is HP or LP. Not much help I know, but as far as I know, all rose type burners are HP.

Phooey! My stupid regulator doesn't have a gauge on it, so I don't even know what pressure it puts out (low, I suspect). It does have a plastic screw cover with an adjustor screw below that. I've been futzing with it, and seem to have picked up a couple of btu because I'm boiling faster and more Vig-Arous-Ly than before.

It's kind'of a moot point. I'm going natural gas. Gonna tap into the hot water heater's CW and NG supply lines and install QDs on my carport for summer use, and in the brewery (laundry room, which is on the other side of that same wall) for winter use.

What I can tell you about the efficiency of electric heat is that, in this climate and all other things being equal, it costs 3X more to heat a home with resistance heat than it does with natural gas. Most of the all electric homes in this area have been retrofitted with gas furnaces.

You could not pay me to live in an all electric home. Many's the time that I heated my house and kept my babies from freezing during a days or weeks long electric outage with the gas cook top and/or oven!

Charlie (loves diversity!)

[aleguy]

It sounds like you have a low pressure regulator. The tall ones with the metal knobs on top are the high pressure ones that you want. Natural gas is all well and good, but you'll probably have to use wok style burners from Kitchensupplydirect.com. Those burners are pretty, but they are prone to all sorts of problems such as leaks around the jet seats and holes in the cast iron rings. They often have bad sooting problems as well. Not everyone has these problems, but they are fairly common, so be aware.

[silver4269]

The Brutus10 Clone in my garage uses HP Propane Wok jet burners, and we've had lots of problems with soot. Unless the burners are full on the Blichmann 15 gallon pots are constantly coated in soot. we try not to touch them. After dough in (mashtun) or boil (kettle) I adjust the flame down to almost off because there is sooo much flame coming out. If I leave the burners on full, then the mashtun jumps up 10 degrees in a flash and holding a real mash temp is nigh impossible.
The replacement burners will be Banjo or Hurricane burners when more beer funding is available. Why spend the money on shiny Stainless pots if they are constantly covered in black crap?
we were curious about the smaller diameter Jet Burners, would they be better to use then the large ones we have? Has anyone removed half the jets as we've also heard that's a good way to bring down the Extreme fire. I can heat up my strike water in the HLT with the full burner for starting the day. no need to have that massive burner under the Mashtun.

[Droodles1]

I opted for the 10 jet burners I have not fired them up yet I stll need to do some wiring

[aleguy]

I still vote for rose burners, they're cheap, bulletproof, and fully adjustable without sooting. The big banjos are okay too, but they don't burn as clean when they're set low and they cost, man do they cost. The little banjos just don't crank enough BTUs to be worthwhile. If you're one of those people who absolutely has to use jet burners 'cause they look so cool, then be my guest, but they really weren't designed for this type of use. At least you have something to put your wok on.

[fastdogbrewing]

At one point I had thought about getting one of these. Would be nice to have two paths to control for heat. But I still have no problem with my jet burners, even if they do soot.

http://www.topfoodservice.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?store_code=TFS&screen=PROD&product_code=KECABR005

[aleguy]

Man! That is one ugly beast of a burner! Though if the BTU calculations are correct, it doesn't crank as hard as a rose (170,000 BTU) or a large Banjo (210,000 BTU).
A friend of mine uses jet burners and I always walk away from his brew sessions looking like a Welsh coal miner! If soot is your thing, have at it.

[foomench]

At one point I had thought about getting one of these. Would be nice to have two paths to control for heat.

I hear that. I was considering that (well, here, cheaper) and asked around if anyone else was using one. No replies. Seems like a great idea to me. Crank it full open to come to boil, then shut down half to maintain the boil, and then fine tune from there.