Our good friends Paula and Pret bought a kiln not long ago, so that Paula could build even more experimental bread ovens. Paula is an amazing baker, and gives bread-making classes around New England. The kiln they bought was in Mattapoisett, not far from here on the mainland, and came with two big burners. The burners, as you can see, now reside in my studio, taking up a lot of floor space.From the number of bricks they ended up with, I suspect the kiln was in the 25-30 cubic foot range, maybe bigger. The burners look real big to me, since I'm used to the six on my Olympic, which are nothing at all like these. They're set up for natural gas, have blowers and mega pilot lights and thermocouples.
I don't know, frankly, if I need two burners for the size soda kiln I'm thinking about (between 5 and 10 c.f.), but it never hurts to have more than you need. Does anyone who knows about these things see anything in the photos that you'd like to tell me about?
6 comments:
I will have my kiln guy take a look- he'll be home in a few.
Me? I know nothing!
unless your local building codes and fire marshall says otherwise - ditch the pilots. Are you using LP or Natural gas now? Any idea about BTU output from these?
No idea at this point about the BTU output. I might be able to track down the previous owners. And I haven't scraped off all the rust yet, so there might be information under all that.
I'm firing natural gas in my present kiln, which I will continue to fire. But as long as the local government approves, I should be able to use natural gas on these, too. That's still up in the air.
And Meredith, Tracey and her family are on the deck now, having just finished a meal of sea scallops and bluefish, plus a few other things.
those pilot burners are awesome and I'd def leave them. we have them on our car kiln at the U and they're nice to heat overnight if the kiln is damp. They'll get it up to about 250 and hold it there. they also don't blow out unless there's a hurricane, perfect for an outdoor kiln.
if you can find the cfm for the blowers and the orifice size(hard to find out without taking apart) you can figure the btu output. you may have to change the orifice anyways if you're using propane. forced draft burners are typically only used for low pressure, up to half psi. i've built and modified several forced draft burners, would be happy to offer up any advice you may need.
seem the guys will cover you in the burner department- me, I am in for the social game.
So happy they, Tracey and crew, made it- enjoy it sounds lovely!
Thanks, all. I'll continue to investigate. Tracey, Gerry and Wesley left after breakfast this morning, hoping to get to the DC area tonight. Home by Friday, sounds like.
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