Fired up my brew pot for the first time today with 6.5 gallons of water.
The instructions for the hell fire say to adjust the air vent to 1/3.
Not sure if 1/3 open or close. But anyway, could not get a yellow flame free operation unless the air was wide open.
Never did get a wide open gas feed because yellow flame.
The water did come to a full boil (not crazy hard boil) and will be ok.
Just puzzled with the flame limit and air vent position.
Next after cooling everything down with copper coil (worked outstanding with my 49* tap water) and tried to hit and hold 152*.
Sneaked up on it slowly, but had trouble holding that temp. Flame was so low that almost invisible. Looks like it may be an off/on deal to hold the temp. Is that a normal approach?
Thanks
First, I confess that Iāve never owned or even played with the hellfire burner. But I would adjust the damper so the flame is blue.
Second, Iām not sure I follow what youāre doing. It sounds like you brought your water up to a boil and then chilled it back down? Was there a reason for this?
I believe your doing extract. If you are brewing a kit with NO grain bring your water to a boil, turn off burner and add your extract. If WITH steeping grains bring your water up to around 150Ā° and steep away. Donāt let the water get above 170Ā° and a 30min steep is long enough.
Once you get onto boiling your wort you can adjust the gas to keep it at a boil. It doesnāt need to be leaping out of the pot, just a āgoodā boil.
IF you decide to mashā¦ get the grains and water up to 158Fā¦ shut off the heat, wrap the mash-tun (kettle) with a heavy blanketā¦ stir every 15 minutesā¦ IF you loose heat and end up below 142F remove the blanket and reheat, gentlyā¦ stirringā¦ The mash should last 1 hour once up to tempā¦
Neither of my 2 banjo burners throw an absolute blue flameā¦ You are trying to keep it as blue as possibleā¦ donāt obsessā¦
Time for a real runā¦ Weād like to follow along!
Sneezles61
Loopie, yes, I should have stopped at 150 on the way up to see if I could hold that temp.
Since asking the questios, I have seen a couple utube boils where the water was roiling like mad. Not sure I can do that. Iāll try again in the next couple days.
Also, I plan to call the hell fire folks on what to expect and if Iām doing something wrong.
Sneezles61, good idea with the blanket. If and when I go all grain Iāll use a cooler tun with āmaybeā a single pass draining; no spurge water. Still mulling that around.
I think my extract is arriving today from NB. Itās about time I make some beer.
I have the Blichmann Burner previous to the Hellfire and have used it with zero complaints for years. Have you seen this vid for the Top Tier Burner?
It should be very similar in setup instructions to your Hellfire. For reference my damper is typically open about about 50% and I get a steady blue flame with no issues. I do get an occasional whine out of my tank depending on where I have the flow valve set so I do occasionally tinker with that on brewday to eliminate the annoying sound.
Rad
I bought the hellfire recently and have had good luck with it. I find that once it gets heated up I can adjust that damper to get a nice blue flame. But when first started it seems to like the orange flameā¦ not sure if that means too much air or not enough, but try to get it hot, be sure your tank is open all the way (and you are not almost out of propane). I honestly donāt pay much attention as to how open or closed it is I just move it slowly one way or the other to find the right spot for the gas flow.
I did a second 6.5 water test run today. Felt much more comfortable this time.
Still, the burner will not operate anywhere but wide open on the air vent. I even used a flash light to look into the intake throat for foreign blockage; all clear. The good thing is the flame is fine with just adjusting the regulator. If I run a hotter flame, the heat just boils up the outside of the pot cooking my thermometer. So a decent flame gets the job done. Went from 50ās* to boil in about 50 minutes.
Loopie, I stopped at 154* āon the way upā and was able to hold it nicely. Killed the flame and the temp seemed to hold well. A quick short duration flame on would goose it up a touch if needed.
All looks good.
Thanks guys
Awā¦ the dreaded āwhy is it so hot and the water is coldā syndromeā¦
Sneezles61
During my first brew yesterday, the hell fire worked great. I does need to have the air full open for whatever reason. Control was fine with just the gas regulator.
