BTU Burner for size of HLT

Mashing
1

Is 66000 BTUs enough to heat 55 gallon HLT…40 gallon finished batch…so 52 gallons of water?

2

So here’s what I’m thinking.

1 BTU heats 1 pound of water 1 Degree

I have 550 pounds of water that I need to heat from 40 degrees F to 208’Degrees F
Water boils at 208 degrees F at my elevation.

168 Degrees X 550 pounds= 92400 BTUs

So if my burner (66000 BTUs) runs for 1.5 hours I should have boiling water…but wait…how efficient is my pot…well if Blichmann pots are as good as they are expensive I should get to boiling by farting near the pot.

Some how I don’t think that will happen…so lets say I get 50 percent of the heat in the water…is it really going to take three hour to boil my water???

3

IIRC, the box on my fryer said around 150,000 btu’s. It roughly take 20 minutes to go from tap to 170* (4 gallons). Then 10-15 minutes to go from 155* to boil (~210).

So you might be right with 3hr to get to a boil.

What is the psi rating on your regulator?

4

I think they are 40 Psi.

5

Hmm, mine has a 10psi tag on it.

What burner set up is it?

6

I did a rudimentary test with my NG burner a few months ago, it’s one of these 23 burner impinging burners though I’ve removed the 3 burners that don’t impinge on other flames:

It took around 2 hours to get 28 gallons from 58° to boiling at 68,000 BTU input. The burner is rated at 175K but I only had the valve cracked open during my test and clocked the gas meter. A lot of heat comes up along side of my pot, when I redesign my burner stand I’m going to try to contain more heat under the pot.

I know this doesn’t answer your question but I thought I’d pass on my limited experience.

7

Just looked 2 PSI …shouldn’t matter though 66000 BTUs is 66000 BTUs.

8

If you think 2psi can feed a 170k btu high pressure burner,

http://www.agrisupply.com/high-pressure ... sid=&eid=/

If you have a gas grill with a higher pressure regulator on it, I would try swaping regulators 1st to see if you can get more heat from it.

Then look at getting a different regulator or burner.

9

Regulators either come as high pressure or low pressure, if you buy a burner with regulator it should be matched. I’d go with as high of a BTU rating as I could find for a 55gal boil. Thats darn near two barrels, look at what a 2bbl pro system comes with for ideas on burner size.