Last night I was finally able to brew again. I was done mashing and lautering the Weissbier wort when I pulled out my turkey fryer burner just to find out that it stopped working. Despite a full propane cylinder no propane would come out of the regulator and after tinkering with it for a while an deciding that this is not the kind of stuff I feel comfortable fixing myself I had to look for other options.
I was also 9:30. Not enough time to rush and buy a new burner and I was also not in the mood of starting a wood fire and boil the wort that way. So I decided to cool the wort down and put it into my fermentation chest where it will be sitting at ~0-4 C until I can resume brewing it, which will most likely be tomorrow.
I had a similar sounding problem with one of my turkey fryer burners last year. I took it apart and it turned out that the channel/tube that the propane flows through had just become clogged with dried up wort from boil overs. I soaked the burner in PBW and used a coat hanger to clear it out. After I reassembled it, it worked great.
I checked the burner again last night and it seems that the regulator is busted. When I turn it on I get a burst of propane and then nothing. I was looking for an opportunity to buy a new one, but didn’t imagine that I would have sweet wort sitting in the fridge while doing that. Since I mash on the stove top I obviously didn’t notice the problem earlier.
In Raleigh, you can get spiders in the tube if you don’t use it for a while. Coat hanger….or buy the new cooler one at Agri Supply.