Propane

[Paul01036]

Last year I struggled with getting enough pressure to run efficiently my Smokey Lake propane evaporator. I have that straightened out, I removed the regulator from the 120-pound tank and connected directly to it.

The issue was it was being downgraded by two regulators thus reducing the pressure too much. Has anyone had an issue with the brass line freezing? I had to extend the line about 13 inched to make a solid connection.

I wrapped it with insulation as an added layer of protection, but I am just curious what the general thoughts are out there.

I am a hobbyist with about 50-75 taps and will be boiling with propane 100% of the time. The tank as mentioned is 125-pounds.

thank you

[Zucker Lager]

Your tank has liquid on the bottom and a gas pocket at the top. When you vent off gas, reducing pressure, the liquid boils off to replenish that gas pocket. As that liquid changes "state" it absorbs heat and that makes it colder. As you keep that up things will get colder and colder until the liquid doesn't want to boil anymore because there isn't enough heat available, so the pressure drops. With everything getting colder and colder there is a point where the "outside" of the tank, regulator, piping, will be cold enough to condense moisture from the air and that will freeze on the outside but doesn't effect the system inside. So a larger tank will take longer to cool down and give you more run time till pressure drop OR any heat applied to the system will help. Aggressive heating can be dangerous especially an open flame so my suggestion would be adding another tank or switch to a larger one. jay

[Brien]

I'm not sure how many BTU this burner is, or how cold it was when you were using it outside. But you may want to buy a second 120 propane tank and manifold them together. This will ensure enough Liquid propane at the bottom of the tank is being boiled off to gas.

[Paul01036]

Thank you for the responses and I hope you both have a productive 2023 season.

[maple flats]

I had issues like that when I tried running a 2x6 finisher on a 2# tank. I then changed it to a 50 gal bulk tank, problem solved, I was then able to run my finisher, propane bottler, and tankless water heater, and an 8000 BTU heater for the RO room at the same time. However I did need to get the propane supplier to change to a higher pressure regulator or the finisher would not fire correctly. In my case, each had their own regulator in line before the appliance, the regulator on the big tank had to be high enough to supply enough propane to each of the items in the sugarhouse for their lower pressure regulator. The items in the sugarhouse, some had 5psi regulators, 1 had a 10psi, the main tank I believe was 20psi. From the main tank their tiny line hooked up to a 3/4" black pipe that runs along one wall in my sugarhouse with each item drawing off, then a regulator for that item.

[Paul01036]

Thank you Maple Flats, that was my problem last year. I needed 10/12 pounds to fire consistently the Smokey Lake Evaporator/finisher which I couldn't get from the propane suppliers regulator. I removed it and tested and all seems fine now. I am hopeful for a better year this year.

[TheNamelessPoet]

I also use propane, but I do not have a large tank yet. I swap 2 15-20lb tanks that I swap every 60-90 minutes. PITA, but ive got in down to under 1 minute to swap them so not too much heat is lost in that minute.