Midwest supplies is offering 24% off for the next 24 hours on their Dark Star burner. Has anyone used this burner? If so, what are your thoughts? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm looking for an inexpensive but good burner.
If the cost comes out cheaper than the regular run of the mill banjo burner, then roll with it. Otherwise, look else where.
I've used it & loved it, but haven't used other burners to compare it to- before we picked up the dark star we were using a camping stove, which wasn't the quickest at changing temperature..
How many times have you used it? Has the paint burned off or does it seem to be heat resistant/proof? I have a Bayou burner and since most of the paint has been burned off its starting to rust and I'm looking into buying a new burner.
Just used mine yesterday. Good value. However if your kettle is narrow you WILL get soot on the sides. NOTHING has worked for me to stop it. Air adjustments etc.
FYI Bayou is now making some of their burner stands out of stainless. I think I saw the SP-10 in stainless. edit: ya the SS-10. Kind of expensive though. http://www.bayouclassiccooking.com/baclstss.html
Midwest has been pushing that burner hard lately. I'm waiting for a % off deal with free shipping. Seems like you could probably catch a deal where you could get it for around $40 total.
That's basically what I'm looking for. I bought my Bayou off Amazon for about $40 and its going on 2 years now so the rust is starting to set it. It still seems like it works well enough but if I find something at a good price that will last, I will gladly buy it.
My SP-10 is a rusted (surface) but still works and holds my 15 gal kettle full of wort quite well. Not sure why you would bother to replace it, unless you just want an upgrade? The rust shouldn't hurt the fuctionality unless you are rusting through which I find hard to beleve given how long I've had mine and how it looks.
Well like I said I'm just not sure if I'm getting the full potential out of my burner but its still functional so if something cheap comes along that will last a long time I may purchase it. Otherwise my SP-10 will suffice.
Sadly I've only used it once since getting it (I brew with another guy- everything is at his place & our schedules don't line up often).. We had soot appear on ours too but weren't worried about it.
I think they had a deal over the weekend for something like 24% off...I think it came to about $40, didn't investigate shipping though. I have a Brinkmann one I got for like $30 with 30qt pot at Home Depot after Thanksgiving a couple years ago. Been using it, successfully, but it's not that frugal on fuel, and it has an auto-shut off that has never worked right. I have it jury rigged to run without shutting off, but I am thinking of a replacement burner one of these days. Paint is all burnt off, and the surface is all rusty, but it burns OK.
On most of the burners I've seen, the rust will only result in 'failure' of the sheet metal components, which are not structural. The worst that will happen is that you'll have to fashion a new wind screen.
Check the weight limit on the dark star. I remember reading it somewhere and thinking it was light. If you plan on going anything higher than 5 gal batches you may want to pay a little extra now.
I keep my burner dry in the garage. I'm not too worried about the rust and expect it to hold up for a long time.
I've got the dark star and the blichman burner. the Dark Star burner works great for $40. The Blichmann is way better but also 4X the price. Both have rust on them and have no issues with working. That is to say that the dark star burner is great for the price and that even the expensive high end burners rust and it's not a problem
