Trouble getting 3 Gal to a boil

I was cleaning my new wort chiller by boiling .5 gallons of vinegar and 2.5 gallons of water in my 5 gallon steel pot and it took what seemed to be a really long time. I have a gas stove top and the temperature went up like this....

degrees - minutes
130 - 27
150 - 37
170 - 51
190 - 70
205 - 85

never got to a full boil, but i did see some tiny bubbles on the bottom of the pot. I had to stop after about 100 minutes. Am i just being impatent. I cant imagine how long this might have taken with the extract in there.

Should i brew with just a 2 gallon boil?

Either find a way to cover two burners with your brew kettle or get a propane burner (turkey fryer) and boil outside.

You can do a two gallon boil, but you will likely wind up with darker beer and certainly require a touch more hops. It sounds like your stovetop might even have issues with two gallons!

Any suggestions on an outdoor propane burner solution? I guess the main thing is to make sure you can control the heat.

Lots of people use the turkey fryers you can buy cheaply at Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and the like. They usually come with at least a 30qt pot, so that you can do full boils - improving the quality of your brew. There may still be a few on clearance, some people have been talking about them being available for !$30 or so.

Depending on your funds availability, you can also buy a separate burner - Bayou Classic has some nice ones, there are a bunch of recent threads about them (including my 210k Banjo Cooker :rockin But, then you need a separate brew kettle, either a big pot or a converted half-barrel beer keg.

Since you have a wort chiller, though, the next step is to move up to full wort boils, which means one of these options. Controlling the heat isn't that big a deal, they have regulators and such on them.

Thanks, i will check out those stores today. I was curious about the price because the ones at morebeer.com run about $89.

Burners at homebrew shops are incredibly expensive. You can buy the one I have - which kicks the snot out of the ones you can buy at morebeer - for $65 from either Home Depot's website or Amazon.com, both of whom offer free shipping. But, that may be more burner that you need. You should be able to find a good turkwy fryer, with a large, aluminum pot for $30 - $40, and if you want stainless you can get a turkey fryer setup for probably $80 - $100.

EDIT: Read this thread for a very good option.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?p=178881#post178881

According to my local brew store owner most of the new turkey fryers have fairly low pressure regulators (10 PSI) because they want to reduce the heat that could potentially cause a grease fire and subsequent law suit. Also according to the brew store owner a 10 psi regulator takes a very long time to heat a large amount of water and I could get more BTU's and heat faster by going with a higher PSI regulator. I looked at the new turkey fryer I got for christmas and sure enough a 10 psi regulator was attached, but my old steamer/fish fryer had a 20 psi regulator on it. (legal disclaimer) I'm new to all this and I am not advising you to do what I did. But it made sense to me so I got an adjustable 30 PSI reg for the new turkey fryer. Again according to the brew store owner by going to a higher and adjustable reg I could attach 2 burners to 1 tank. This is all hearsay info from a source that has an agenda to sell equipment so if anybody has any real experience they could give you some sound advise. I'm as lost as last years easter egg but though it might be of interest to post and see what other people have to say.

The Bayou Classic Banjo burner has a 30 PSI regulator. Buy one of these (Bird mentioned the best sites) and you will ROCK ON!!:rockin:

I had the same issue with my electric stove, mostly because the bottom of the pot didnt have good flush contact with the heating element. So i got the "entry" level bayou burner for $40 that has the 10 psi regulator. Never had any issues getting 5 gallons to a speedy boil, and i only have the valve cranked open a little bit.