Bayou Classic SP10 Won't Heat Water

I ordered a Bayou Classic SP10 turkey fryer on Amazon a couple weeks ago. It came without the shutter plate that goes on the burner, and I spoke with customer service to get one of those.

Tonight I did the test run to burn the paint off. I put 6 gallons of water in my aluminium boil kettle and got it started. I took temperatures every 15 minutes, and here's what I got:

Minutes - Temp (*F)
00 - 53
15 - 70.6
30 - 95
45 - 104.5
60 - 104.5
75 - 102.7

Outside temp was approximately 57 at the start and 43 at the end.

There's a significant quadratic relationship (P = 0.002) between the time the time and temp...if you care about the statistics of it.

I've never heard anything bad about the SP10's. Anyone else experience this kind of problem?

Probably more of a regulator/OPD valve issue than a problem with your burner. Try completely closing the tank valve and the regulator valve. Disconnect the two just for good measure. Reconnect them and fully open the tank valve first. Slowly open the regulator valve and light the burner. See if you can get a bigger flame that way.

I have these on my single tier rig, and the shutter plate was key. There are 2 vents on the burner, and I actually put foil tape over one entire vent, then rotated the plate to cover up about half the other one. That gives me my optimum flame; your optimum probably depends on both vent size and on the propane pressure the burner is receiving. With both vents mostly open, the flame would blow itself out. With both of them mostly covered, it burned yellow.

Make sure you flush the burner out. I have one that had all kinds of crap inside that slowed the gas down.