S60
MemberGot rid of the matchlight.
Question: If I am not starving the my grill of natural gas, what could be the reasons for the natural gas burners not burning the full stated BTU rating? Thanks for your thoughts. (Question repeated again at bottom)
Background (not directly relevant to question): Bought a used natural gas Weber Silver C ("NG C") to hook up to my natural gas pipe. I was previously using a propane Weber Silver C ("Propane C"). The Propane C could not be used for my needs on high as it was too hot, easily topping 600 and pushing 650. I typically ran the Propane C on med-high. The NG C got to 550 after 15 minutes of warm up, but struggles to climb back to 550 after opening the lid and putting on some food, such as hamburgers. It’s not a problem as I don’t usually cook at 550 and the burgers cooked just fine at 400-450 which is the temp the NG C reached by the time the burgers were done, having opened the lid and flipped them once. But I would like for the NG C to quickly get back to 550 if I put some steaks on it (like the Propane C could do). So it got me thinking - am I feeding the NG C enough natural gas.
Analysis: I tested the BTU's buy reading my gas meter. My readings are in small increments so the margin of error might be high, but I took two different readings and obtained the approximate results both times so I believe my readings are accurate enough. I am assuming 1 cubic foot of natural gas has 1,000 BTUs. My gas meter’s smallest dial reading is for 1/2 cubic foot. The flame on my NG C burners is mostly blue with occasional flecks of orange at the peaks. The NG C side burner is all blue.
Test 1 – ran the 3 main and the 1 side burner on high and it took 53 seconds to use ½ cubic foot. That is 9.4 BTU per second. According to Weber, all 4 burners are rated 46,000 BTU (12 x 3, plus 10), which is 12.7 BTU per second. So my NG C burners are putting out only 75% of their rated capacity.
Test 2 – Based upon the results of Test 1, it looks like I am starving the NG C. So I did a second test. This time, I ran only the 3 main burners on high to see if the 3 main burners would use the natural gas that was available to the side burner, based on all 4 burners being fed from the same manifold. To my surprise, the 3 main burners on high took 1 minute 6 seconds to burn 1/2 cubic foot. That equates to 7.5 BTU per second. So the 3 main burners did not use the extra gas available for the side burner. And even with the side burner off, the three main burners used only about 75% of their stated BTU. The main burnes burned the same BTUs regardless if the side burner was on or off.
The NG C main burners are 12,000 BTU, and the side burner is 10,000 BTU. The 3 main burners represent 78.2% of Weber’s stated BTU output for the grill. My testing above resulted in just the 3 burners using 79.8% of the natural gas used by the 3 burners plus the side burner. So at least the NG C is burning BTUs in proportion to Weber’s stated proportions. More importantly, my results show that the main burners are not being starved of natural gas. If they were being starved, the 3 main burners should have used some or all of the reserve capacity available to the side burner that was turned off (this is because I believe all 4 burners use the same manifold so the gas available for the side burner is available for the main burners when the side burner is not being used).
Question: If I am not starving the NG C of natural gas, what could be the reasons for the NG C burners not burning the full stated BTU rating? Thanks for your thoughts.
Background (not directly relevant to question): Bought a used natural gas Weber Silver C ("NG C") to hook up to my natural gas pipe. I was previously using a propane Weber Silver C ("Propane C"). The Propane C could not be used for my needs on high as it was too hot, easily topping 600 and pushing 650. I typically ran the Propane C on med-high. The NG C got to 550 after 15 minutes of warm up, but struggles to climb back to 550 after opening the lid and putting on some food, such as hamburgers. It’s not a problem as I don’t usually cook at 550 and the burgers cooked just fine at 400-450 which is the temp the NG C reached by the time the burgers were done, having opened the lid and flipped them once. But I would like for the NG C to quickly get back to 550 if I put some steaks on it (like the Propane C could do). So it got me thinking - am I feeding the NG C enough natural gas.
Analysis: I tested the BTU's buy reading my gas meter. My readings are in small increments so the margin of error might be high, but I took two different readings and obtained the approximate results both times so I believe my readings are accurate enough. I am assuming 1 cubic foot of natural gas has 1,000 BTUs. My gas meter’s smallest dial reading is for 1/2 cubic foot. The flame on my NG C burners is mostly blue with occasional flecks of orange at the peaks. The NG C side burner is all blue.
Test 1 – ran the 3 main and the 1 side burner on high and it took 53 seconds to use ½ cubic foot. That is 9.4 BTU per second. According to Weber, all 4 burners are rated 46,000 BTU (12 x 3, plus 10), which is 12.7 BTU per second. So my NG C burners are putting out only 75% of their rated capacity.
Test 2 – Based upon the results of Test 1, it looks like I am starving the NG C. So I did a second test. This time, I ran only the 3 main burners on high to see if the 3 main burners would use the natural gas that was available to the side burner, based on all 4 burners being fed from the same manifold. To my surprise, the 3 main burners on high took 1 minute 6 seconds to burn 1/2 cubic foot. That equates to 7.5 BTU per second. So the 3 main burners did not use the extra gas available for the side burner. And even with the side burner off, the three main burners used only about 75% of their stated BTU. The main burnes burned the same BTUs regardless if the side burner was on or off.
The NG C main burners are 12,000 BTU, and the side burner is 10,000 BTU. The 3 main burners represent 78.2% of Weber’s stated BTU output for the grill. My testing above resulted in just the 3 burners using 79.8% of the natural gas used by the 3 burners plus the side burner. So at least the NG C is burning BTUs in proportion to Weber’s stated proportions. More importantly, my results show that the main burners are not being starved of natural gas. If they were being starved, the 3 main burners should have used some or all of the reserve capacity available to the side burner that was turned off (this is because I believe all 4 burners use the same manifold so the gas available for the side burner is available for the main burners when the side burner is not being used).
Question: If I am not starving the NG C of natural gas, what could be the reasons for the NG C burners not burning the full stated BTU rating? Thanks for your thoughts.