Craigslist Score = Bayou Classic

[ChrisS68]

Picked up a Bayou Classic Turkey kit off of Craigslist for 10 bucks. The pot is, I believe, the 30 quart aluminum - a little grungy but can be cleaned. The stand looks kinda like an SP10. While the burner is the high-pressure type, the stand is a little different and does not have the wind guard. The only drawback is that the regulator is 10 PSI, so I might have to upgrade, but for 10 bucks I'm pretty happy. Heck, the pot alone is worth more than that. I feel kinda bad that I just ordered an SQ14, but if one burner is good, two are better, right? At least I can get started on full boils until I get the rest of my stuff together. If nothing else, I can use it for corn boils or whatever.

 

[mvdilts]

Absolutely 2 burners are better than one - if nothing else you have a spare!

 

[avidhomebrewer]

Good score. You'll like having 2 burners. You can always fashion a wind guard out of some scrap sheet metal, if you need it.

 

[ChrisS68]

Did a test boil last night. Didn't time it or anything since I was playing around with adjusting the flame. Even with "just" a 10 PSI regulator, it sure appears to kick out a lot of heat. Seemed to get up to a boil easily, and once there, you can really throttle back to maintain.

One thing I'm going to need to play with is the air adjustment. At low flame I was able to adjust the air inlet and get a decent quiet blue flame. At full throttle it seems the way to go is wide open and it sounds like a blast furnace. The midrange is where I might have some issues. The flame sounds overly noisy and tends to lift off the burner. Even closing the air inlet all the way (as closed as it lets you anyway) doesn't fully alleviate the problem. If I put my fingers over the inlet to cut off a little more air, I can get the flame to settle down. Obviously, cutting off too much air turns the flame yellow which is not what you want. Have others had the same experience with these burners? Maybe the way to go is just about full throttle until boil is reached, then cut it back to maintain a rolling boil.