How long should it take to boil 6 gallons w/ propane

[priedthirdeye]

I am trying to start my first brew. Im just boiling water now to determine the evaporation rate for a 1 hour boil. I'm not sure how much to blast my propane in order to start my boil or to maintain the boil. I have a bayou classic 15 gallon pot and bayou propane outdoor grill.

1) About how long do you think it should take for a setup like this to start a rolling boil on 6 gallons of water?
2) About what percent would you say the propane output should be? I'm kind of going by sound right now.
3) Do you blast it to get a fast boil then put down the propane?

 

[Nickyssix]

It really depends on the burner - my burner takes almost 45 mins to an hour to get from mash temp to rolling boil, then i know i can leave it on full blast for a nice even boil...but your burner may be more powerful so you may have to turn it down - the best way is to watch it like a hawk until you know your set up..
And once boiling i will lose 8-9 litres (2.3gallons) to evaporation in a one hour boil.
Good luck !

 

[priedthirdeye]

I read somewhere that the average loss should be about 1 to 1.5 gallons for something like this. I know there are a lot of variables at play but supposedly if the heat is higher than it needs to be that will contribute to a higher evaporation rate. It's good to hear that it takes that long to come to boil, because I was getting similar results and I thought it should of taken much quicker. I was also trying to run it on the low end as far as heat goes with the goal of minimizing evaporation

 

[MaxStout]

Depends on the BTU output of the burner, and a few other variables. Looks like that's a Dark Star? If so, that's comparable to the SQ14 I used to use. With that, it would take me about 45-50 minutes to get 6 or 7 gallons from room temp to a boil, and about 20-25 to go from mash temps to a boil. YMMV, but that's a rough estimate.

 

[priedthirdeye]

I started from hose water. Hard to say how long it took to get to boil because my flame went out a couple of times.

I dialed back the propane and maintained a nice boil and only wound up losing about 1 gallon.

This is going to be my first batch, so I'm starting with extract.

I'm going to start with 6 gallons and I should be OK.

Thanks.

 

[JDFlow]

There are uncontrolled variables to take into consideration. Most notably outdoor temperature and wind. Both will affect your boil in different ways. I always just assume I'll boil off one gallon. Any more than that just gives me a slightly higher gravity, no biggie.

 

[priedthirdeye]

I wound up bringing it to steeping temperature of 155, added grains and kept the burner on thinking I had it maintaining temp. It went up past 160 so I shut off the burner and added water to bring the temp down and prevent what I hear will cause "off flavors" (again it's my first time doing this). That brought me up to nearly 7 gallons. After that I made sure to boil hard with lid off trying to boil off as much as possible in 60 minutes. It seems to be working out. Newbie mistakes I guess.

 

[Puddlethumper]

I wound up bringing it to steeping temperature of 155, added grains and kept the burner on thinking I had it maintaining temp. It went up past 160 so I shut off the burner and added water to bring the temp down and prevent what I hear will cause "off flavors" (again it's my first time doing this). That brought me up to nearly 7 gallons. After that I made sure to boil hard with lid off trying to boil off as much as possible in 60 minutes. It seems to be working out. Newbie mistakes I guess.

You're encountering the same learning curve we've all worked our way through to one degree or another.

Your burner looks like an SP-10. If so it is rated at 55k BTU. I have one of them and with tap water temp at 75F it takes 20-30 min. to bring 10 gals. up to strike water temp of +/- 165F. That is running almost full-blast. Keep in mind that you probably can't run it with the valve wide open. At that setting the flame may well blow out.

Draining wort into the boil kettle at +/-150F it takes about 15-30 min. to bring the wort to a boil. But I'm doing vourlauf while draining the wort and have the burner running at about half-throttle the whole time. I'm trying to get the wort to hit the rolling boil just a few minutes after I'm done draining the sparge. It's sort of a dance that takes some practice to work out the rhythm and the timing. I am brewing in an unheated garage so as the seasons change and water/ambient air temps change the timing changes with it. As the wort approaches boiling there will be a thick head of foam building on the surface. That's when you need to get really careful and modulate the flame down as needed to keep it from boiling over. Once you have a good stable rolling boil you are good to go.

I typically lose about 1/2 - 3/4 gal. per hour but you need to grab your timer and calculate your own boil-off rate. Fill your kettle with a measured amount of tap water. Bring it to a boil for one hour. Shut it off and measure how much you have left. Write down the result. You'll use this info when calculating target boil volumes for future brews. By extrapolation you can figure out how much more wort you'll need if you take on a recipe that calls for a 90 min. boil.

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers!

 

[SwissRico]

Found this boil time calculator previously.

http://www.phpdoc.info/brew/boilcalc.html

you can set the beginning and end temps, and the wattage of the burner.

 

[pharaohpierre]

That brought me up to nearly 7 gallons. After that I made sure to boil hard with lid off trying to boil off as much as possible in 60 minutes.

I don't know if you have boiled with the lid on before but Always boil with the lid off.

 

[barnaclebob]

I have nearly the exact same setup and same burner. I get about 1.25 - 1.5 gal/hour with a good rolling boil. This seems to happen just when the sound of the burner changes from smooth to rougher or to describe it differently when it goes from a nice hollow sounding hiss to more of a forced rocket like noise.

Any time im heating mash water or getting wort up to boil its just under full blast.