Modulating burner required?

[frenchc]

I was looking into the Economite burner (200,000BTU) and was wondering if anyone has experience with it for a direct fire system. Wondering - does the burner just turn on and off to maintain temperature, or can the flame be regulated automatically to maintain the proper boiling intensity. Thanks in advance for any info.

[almalkin]

We use one of these burners and it is not set up to modulate. I believe Economite does make a modulating burner, but we haven't found it to be necessary. We have the burner sized and adjusted to the proper specs and it simply gets turned on at the beginning of our run-off and gets turned off at the end of the boil. They are pretty cheap, simple devices but should work for you if set up correctly.

The main issue we have had with ours is moisture. These burners are not really designed to be used in a brewery environment and they will have issues firing if they get wet or the atmosphere is excessively humid. Try and keep the burner shielded from moisture somehow. Good luck!

[frenchc]

Thanks. I see - you basically figure out the correct gas pressure and orifice settings needed for the proper boil intensity and then you leave it there. I guess I was thinking that one might want to add more heat at first to get to a boil faster, then dial it back to prevent a boil over, but glad to know that it's working for others as it is pretty economical.

[Bainbridge]

You can use the shutoff valve leading into it to modulate the flow of gas. We fire ours at full blast to get the kettle to a boil, then turn it down to maintain it. Make a little mark on the valve when you find that spot and there you go.

[frenchc]

So modulation is only manual for these economite burners, to my understanding? I asked a midco rep and he said both the gas pressure and air flow need to be manually changed to adjust the burner output. It would be nice to be able to turn down the flame via some knob or dial rather than turning off the flame, then adjusting.

[soia1138]

The modulation really isn't needed and you certainly don't want to be messing with the gas pressure feed. If the burner is adjusted appropriately you will get a good rolling boil. Ours is on a 7bbl kettle, the burner is turned on 5 mins or so into the runoff. By the time the kettle is at full volume there might be 10 minutes left to hit 212F. Boil 60 or 90, whatever your preference and shut it down. Simple and no fuss. If your kettle is smaller it may just need to be tuned down. Have a professional make these adjustments in my honest opinion.

[frenchc]

Yeah, I certainly won't be playing with the gas pressures myself. Sounds like modulation isn't really necessary if we dial in the burner output to what we need it to maintain the correct boil intensity and leave it there. Thanks for the input.

[jebzter]

I have economite burners with the automated turn-down. I have my brewhouse control panel feed a 4-20mA signal to it to modulate from 20%-100%, it works great. We have very consistent boils with no scorching issues. I would recommend it for the boil kettle.

[frenchc]

jebzter,

Could you tell me which burner model you use?

[krichard]

I have economite burners with the automated turn-down. I have my brewhouse control panel feed a 4-20mA signal to it to modulate from 20%-100%, it works great. We have very consistent boils with no scorching issues. I would recommend it for the boil kettle.

Hi Jebzter, I'm in the process of getting our Midco burners setup and would really like to get more detailed info on how you setup your control panel if you don't mind. I have two RE4700BA burners and am working on designing the control panel for them now. Any info you could share would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,
Kerry

[patbrewer]

We have a 15bbl kettle, 22bbl flood volume and routinely bring to a boil 17 to 18 barrels preboil volume. We have an EC300 and after having a professional dial in its performance it works well. For a 15bbl system it is a little slow coming up to a boil but when it reaches boil it does a great job. We just turn on the burner at half kettle full and leave it on for the duration. I think Midco made an EC500 model in the past with a simple regulator that could be manipulated by the end user; would like to have this to get to a boil faster then turn the burner down as for the EC300. If I had a 7bbl system I would consider a EC200 set up the same as we do now. If you have a 10bbl system and a EC300 you could consider using a boil-over sensor set up to switch the burner off when the boil gets too rockin, the burner will start back up when the sensor allows or just do as Bainbridge does. They make clean tasty beers.

[Bainbridge]

Hah, cheers Pat. Congrats on the opening btw! During the summer I apparently don't get to leave the brewery, ever, but I've been planning a little day trip down to Oly and Lacey sometime soon to visit all you new guys down that way.

Ahem back to the thread. Another thing to note is that the Economite 300 can run both natural gas and propane. Since there's no natural gas on the island, we run propane off two tanks in series out back. A few things we learned:

• RTFM. There's some setup to the burner that needs doing, it's not just plug and play. Despite what your propane guy thinks.
• Make sure the reg on your propane tank can supply it with enough pressure, and that it's adjusted to do so. We were getting insufficient feed to the burner and unclean burn.
• Fire code around here says tanks larger than I think like 200 gallons have to be separate from the building by a certain distance, with other precautions and whatnot. But they have no problem with you running two or more 200 gallon tanks in series right against the building. Ah safety.
• There's a different orifice for propane and natural gas, and various other bits and bobs that come with it that have to be installed correctly. See #1.
• If it's not burning cleanly, don't just push through it. Soot will build up. Possibly clogging your kettle exhaust vent. This is a bad thing. (Side note: make sure you have life insurance.)
• If you haven't got a shut off valve on the propane line leading right into the unit, put one in. You can use it to throttle the gas flow and at the end of the day you can shut it off completely. That way if you're a careless chimp and bump the Kettle-On switch while say, cleaning the brewdeck, or accidentally turn the kettle on instead of the hot liquor tank or something, then you won't roast and possibly ruin your kettle.
• If your production goes up, don't forget to tell your propane company... Ooops!