New Burner Tribulations

I finally have the new mash tun built.  Yeah!  Since the new mash tun is direct fire I needed a new burner but I didn’t want to break the bank either.  So I opted to get the Bayou Classic Raised floor burner, I have the shorter version, which has worked fine for me the last couple of years.  After getting the burner the first thing I did was put the keggle on top of it and wouldn’t ya know, the burner is to narrow.  Just barely, but still to small to safely leave a keggle on it and walk away.  So for a couple of dollars I bought some flat steel bars and laid them across to sit the keg on.  Not perfect, but it seems to do the job.

With everything plumbed, water tight, and ready for a brewday, I wanted to boil some water and run the recirculation just to make sure everything was working.  Thankfully that all did; however the new burner’s paint is not high heat resistant.  What the hell is that about?  You make a burner and don’t use High Temperature paint?  The paint immediately started to smolder and smoke.  The fumes were awful and probably toxic, I’m really glad I decided to do this before a real batch and no one was home.

Hopefully someone will learn from my mistakes. Next time will buy a larger burner, because the Bayou burners don’t fit a keggle and you need to test fire with any new equipment.  You are just asking for trouble if you don’t test the new gear before a brew.  Oh, and don’t do it in your garage….