Paella vs large cast iron burner?

[hebbstar]

I've never calculated the gas usage but I get so many brews out of one 13kG bottle that it's not enough to worry about.

I've been monitoring the amount of brews I'm getting from a 19kg bottle. I've had 15 brews so far, a mix of 50 and 25 litre brew lengths and it's still going strong. I don't have a spare so I'm very aware every brew day that I could run out mid boil which is a bit concerning.

I nearly swapped it out before yesterday's brew but I got through it just fine.

Cheers

Paul

[Kev888]

Sounds familiar; I've been down this road with CO2. It helped to weigh the new cylinder to be able to estimate later how much was used, but even then I would cautiously swap it well before the end and so waste gas. The only way I found to get full use from each fill is to have two cylinders, such that theres a spare when one finally runs out, but of course thats twice the deposit and weight. Perhaps with propane the reducing 'umph' may give enough warning, but its not something I've had any experience of.

Cheers
Kev

[Old Hooky]

Can I just add another question to this thread because I have a large propane burner which I too will use when I eventually get a SS pot. Is it possible to get a regulator with a contents gauge for a propane bottle? I'd be a bit worried about starting a brew and running out of gas

[Aleman]

I use an 11KW paella burner with the up to 150mBar regarding. Even at 150mBar the burner is ok all you are doing is wasting gas. I also plan to test an 8kw ring with it as well

[Kev888]

Ah, thats interesting, many thanks. I may try the 50-150mbar one then - I suppose it still counts as low pressure, and if accidentally exceeding the burner's design rating a bit isn't catastrophic then its probably no bad thing to have the greater throughput, should it be needed.

Thanks
Kev

[Kev888]

Can I just add another question to this thread because I have a large propane burner which I too will use when I eventually get a SS pot. Is it possible to get a regulator with a contents gauge for a propane bottle? I'd be a bit worried about starting a brew and running out of gas

I believe that (rarely) some cylinders can have special float gauges, but that pressure gauges aren't hugely useful because the pressure barely drops until all the liquid propane has finished turning to gas, and then its almost too late. As I understand it, the drop in weight is a better way of keeping track of how much gas has been used.

Cheers
Kev

[newtonsshed]

You could go for an auto cross over valve and have two bottles hooked up off the same reg so when runs out say mid brew it would switch to the other one and i think these also have a gauge on them too.

[Frothy]

I've got both the 7.5kw and 8.5kw versions of the cast burner.
Both are good to boil 50L, but the 8.5kw is definately quicker.

[Kev888]

Good stuff, thanks. I think the larger cast burner is the one for me then. It doesn't seem over the top and isn't massively more expensive than the slightly smaller ones.

Yeah, i saw the crossover valve and its a possibility, though either way the key seems to be having two cylinders to make sure theres always one that isn't empty.

Cheers
kev

[boingy]

We have a gas BBQ so the bottle on that doubles as the standby for brewing.

We're also only one mile from our local petrol station that is also a Calor dealer so that would be another option. Would be about a 15 minute interruption to the boil but the beer would be fine.

[Kev888]

Yeah, I suppose it depends on circumstances really and I'm sure you're right- I may have been soured by the CO2 situation where my supplier is quite distant and not the most reliable, and where the consequences of failure are higher (can't get at my beer!).

There are many more calor gas retailers about though, if I were brewing close to one or two of them I would be willing to accept a small break in heating.

Cheers
Kev

[Kev888]

I made a small discovery (it was to me anyway). I couldn't work out why there were differing reports on what sized paella burners work with what pot - turns out all paella burners are not the same; some have nozzles more or less in the top of the ring, others have them further down the sides, angling the flames and making them spread out further. From what a few people have said, I guess the quoted diameters are also a bit too conservative, if you don't want to waste gas up the sides.

Anyway, true to form I'm still dithering a bit; I realised that for BIAB with a thin pot there could be some advantage to having an even/dispersed flame if I wanted to gently add heat during the mash. The paella burners seem designed to give exactly that, so perhaps an appropriately sized one (or a larger one used on less than full power) may be the thing.

Cheers
Kev

[spanspoon]

kev888 i have a 50 litre pot it's quite wide at 45cm diameter x 30cm deep.

i'm in the process of looking for a paella burner, can you point me in the right direction for these 'reports' advice on appropriate sized burners?

[Kev888]

Hi,
I've been searching through forums noting down what people say about the paella burners but unfortunately I haven't actually bookmarked most of them. However here are a couple I did because they're from people I know and trust the judgement of: Rob has already mentioned earlier in this thread about how the paella burner can shoot much of the flame up the side. Over on THBF (here) he says the 400mm paella burner is too big for a 100L pot (which is 50cm diameter). Also, Aleman has referred to his paella burner (and impressive shroud) in several places, which is the 400mm hamilton one; here he says the flames spread to around 52cm diameter. (If I understand them correctly, anyway).

I believe both of these were the classic style paella burners which are suggested for 46-55cm pans, which is why (given that I'm concerned about wasting gas) I think perhaps I will either lean towards a smaller ring than the suggested pan sizes may indicate or else plan not to turn it up full. So that would suggest the 350mm 9.3kw one (designed for pans 40-46cm) may be a better to suit a 50cm pot and possibly the 300mm 8.8kw one (36-42cm) for a 45cm pot - perhaps less really but the 200mm 4.5kw one looks a bit feeble (and is only barely bigger in diameter than the 8.8kw large cast burner).

BUT thats just my guess/extrapolation as I can't find many posts on the smaller paella burners to verify the suitable pot sizes, so don't take this as read. ALSO the paella burners below 400mm don't seem significantly more powerful than the large cast/foker type so I'm not sure that they gain anything and they may well loose more heat up the sides; I suspect the cast burners would be better, I'm only really considering (dithering about!) the paella ones due to wanting a highly even/dispersed flame for heating the mash in BIAB and because above a certain size they come with dual burners/ controls.

Cheers
Kev

(PS this is all for the classic or hamilton stylee paella burners; Garcima do a more powerful +gas range that has a different design and spread to the flames - for example their 300mm +gas one is suggested for pans up to 55cm, the same as their 400mm classic burner).

[Kev888]

Okay, I'm heading back towards the large cast ring now. Based on what Boingy said earlier about a shield to contain the flames its clear that they must be quite well dispersed, under high power at least.

Also I belatedly realised that the 'Italian spiral' burners that quite a lot of the Australian BIAB'ers use is the same thing, so it seems pretty well proven in BIAB too. They have some impressive three and four ring burners out there which I like, but actually the three ring ones aren't especially powerful and the four ring ones seem to lose gas up the sides of the pot, so as economy is on my mind the large cast ones seem perhaps a better compromise.

Cheers
Kev