Turkey fried help

[2shot]

Ok, I bought a turkey frier at a garage sale for $10 so I could start smelting the 500 pounds of range scrape that's been sitting in my garage since March. I got out my 2 quart dutch oven and loaded it about 1/2 way up put it on the frier and lit the flame. One hour later [smilie=1: all I had was a congealed mass in the bottom of the pot. I know that this wasn't getting hot enough although I had the valve on the frier open all the way.

Question #1 I have for all that are better at this than me is, do you put any kind of shield on the bottom of the dutch oven to capture more heat?( my dutch oven is smaller in circumfrance that the heat shield surounding the flame) Do you bend the metal where the burner is so that the flame is closer to the botton of the pot? (my burner is about 8-10 inches away from the bottom of the pot).

I do not know the make of this turkey frier but I can tell you that the burner looks like the same ones that are used on the Cabela's turkey friers. Seems like the flame is more of a candle frame flickering in the wind than what I would call a burner flame. Which leads me to question #2, do these burners ever need cleaning out so that they work better?

Thanks in advance for your help with this.

2shot

[Edubya]

Is there a chance that that an insect has built a nest in the hose or the control valve? If I turn mine up all of the way, I'm afraid that it will melt the cast iron pot! Mine is also about 6-8" below the pot and in one hour I've already melted 20# or so of lead and poured the ingots.

I got some flashing metal at the hardware store and fashioned another windshield between the stand's integrated shield and the pot. I made it about 2" larger diameter so the flame has some breathing room but it seems to help only a little bit.

I think that your problem is in the supply of fuel.

EW

[2shot]

Is there a chance that that an insect has built a nest in the hose or the control valve?

I think that your problem is in the supply of fuel.

EW


Duh insects! That totally slipped my mind. I'll have to check when I get home. The frier I bought looks like it sat around for a while so the insect thing is a possibility.

[KCSO]

Just fixed that problem on mine. The cheap regulator wasn't working right and it would not heat up right. I also had soot on the bottom of the pot. I bought a new regulator from the co-op and now I can do 60-80- pounds an hour.

[geargnasher]

I stole a regulator off of a defunct propane grill to use with my garage-sale fryer burner, it isn't as high-volume as some I've seen on YouTube, but it makes about 1-1/2"-high blue flames. My pot sits about two inches off of the burner ring the way the support bracket is made.

I also use a piece of 18" flashing tin bent in a "C" around the burner and pot, this blocks the wind and the opening splits around the propane supply hose and lets in fresh air to the burner.

Another tip is to put a cup or so of diesel fuel in the pot with the lead and light it. If you don't want to do that, be sure and put the lid on it to conserve heat.

Gear

[2shot]

It's a new pot so no soot on the bottom and top is on to conserve heat. It could be the regulator too as geargnasher and KCSO pointed out. I'll check when I look for bugs. [smilie=f:

[Doby45]

The flame on my fryer actually got more intense and hot the more I closed the air valve.. Maybe you should try closing the air intake some, you will be able to hear a difference in the gas jet. After I closed mine down some I had lead that at night had a slight orange glow to it.

[2shot]

Fixed it! [smilie=w:

I melted down about 175 pounds of range scrape Saturday in a few hours which is only about 1/3 of what I had to smelt.

Thanks for the help guys.

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