Taking my Homebrew Outside (Question about Propane)

[spiderwrangler]

You can mark your propane level within your tank at the beginning and end of brew day and may be able to get an estimate of # of batches.

[BDawg]

I get about 5 or six- if I remember correctly. That includes heating my strike and sparge water, plus the boil. It is a good idea to have a spare tank on hand, too. It sure sucks to run out of propane.

You most definitely will want to have an extra tank around for those unlucky days when you think you have enough gas only to find out that it sputters out midway through the boil!

+1

[maxwell]

You can save propane by heating strike water on your stove and only using the high btu burner for the boil.

[Afterlab]

You can save propane by heating strike water on your stove and only using the high btu burner for the boil.

+1. This is what I do since I know it takes a while to heat up 5 or so gallons using the stove. Gives me plenty of time to get everything set up for brew day.

[Stinkfist]

You can save propane by heating strike water on your stove and only using the high btu burner for the boil.

+1 this is what i do I do my mash and sparge inside and boil outside....though If I did any size larger than 5 gallon batches that would no longer work.. getting 8 gallons outside is a pain..can't imagine 13 or so

[MattK]

You can save propane by heating strike water on your stove and only using the high btu burner for the boil.

+1 this is what i do I do my mash and sparge inside and boil outside....though If I did any size larger than 5 gallon batches that would no longer work.. getting 8 gallons outside is a pain..can't imagine 13 or so

+1 for this as well. I do my mash and sparge inside, and then carry my kettle filled with wort (generally 7.5 to 8 gal.) outside to do the boil. Bit of a PITA, but it works better for me. I then take the wort back inside when the boil is done to chill and transfer. I honestly like having the extra time heating the water inside to clean & prepare everything.

I believe my burner is just over 200K BTU, and I get about 3.5 to 4 batches per tank, and I always keep an extra full tank around, just in case. I've ran out mid brew before, and I was very happy that I had the extra sitting around.

[BDawg]

In very cold weather, the propane tank can freeze up due to the heat loss of the expanding fuel. Having a 2nd (or 3rd) tank around is a must in those conditions.

[CRBrewHound]

For strike, I have a lot of brew buddies who purchased a electric bucket heater then put it on a timer, after you figure out how long it takes to get the required volume to strike with the bucket heater then from that point on you can just put it on a timer.

Really nice to just be able to show up to your system, it all you have to do is dough in!.