Tweaking your stovetop..

I have googling the web trying to figure out how to tweak my Kenmore stovetop to put out a few more btu's.

Does anyone have any experience/advise regarding this operation?

Coil type stove or one of those irritating flat-top things?

For coil type, a canning element and covering the reflector pan with a fresh shiny chunk of aluminum foil help heating, and covering the stovetop under the pot with aluminum foil helps with cleanup. Both foil tricks also help with a gas stove, for that matter.

The flat top ones seem to be inherently "more style than function" from what I read.

<edit>add: You can build a heat stick (search here) to use power from another circuit to help boil the pot.

Sorry, I should have mentioned. This is a gas stove.

Still playing with this idea, but I have drilled the needle valve open to get more gas and opened the air intake hole. The flame isn&#8217;t as clean as I&#8217;d like it right now, but there&#8217;s not too much more a can get on the air mixture. May have to back off on the gas. This has gotten me from barely getting 4 gallons to boil, up to a 6 gallons test boil with water.

Is it safe? I don't know. I'm still waiting for the CO alarm to go off

Have you considered a bucket heater to supplement your boil:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/allied-1000w-bucket-heater-83419/

I know what you mean Encerwal. I brewed my last batch (also my first) on my glass top stove. I will be honest to say it just flat out sucks for trying to get a huge pot of water to boil. I will admit, it does do the job, but takes for ever to bring to boil.

Hey Red, I recommend you try the same technique I plan on doing next go. A good ole fashion propane cooker outside. You can get a lot more heat a lot faster going that route. Then you won't have to worry about tinkering with mommas stove and burning the house down...lol

P.S. Here is a cool little trick I found out about not to long ago for using an outside propane cooker. Before you put your nice shinny pot on the cooker smear some dish soap (the hand wash liquid kind) on the bottom of the pot (it will smell funny at first heat, but won't last long). In doing this you will be able to wash off all the black soot you get on the bottom of your pan from using the propane cooker. I did it on the last two batches of turnip greens we cooked up and it works great. I love my greens!......

Lol. I used to be the quartermaster in scouts and I used to use that trick for keeping the cooking pots clean on the fire.

noisy123 said:

Lol. I used to be the quartermaster in scouts and I used to use that trick for keeping the cooking pots clean on the fire.

Click to expand...

I actually called B.S. when my bride told me the trick. I'll be damned, but it works!.....lol

Maveric777 said:

P.S. Here is a cool little trick I found out about not to long ago for using an outside propane cooker. Before you put your nice shinny pot on the cooker smear some dish soap (the hand wash liquid kind) on the bottom of the pot (it will smell funny at first heat, but won't last long). In doing this you will be able to wash off all the black soot you get on the bottom of your pan from using the propane cooker.

Click to expand...

If you're getting black soot on you pot the air / gas mixture is off. A clean (blue, not yellow) flame will heat better and not leave soot.

Maveric777 said:

Hey Red, I recommend you try the same technique I plan on doing next go. A good ole fashion propane cooker outside. You can get a lot more heat a lot faster going that route. Then you won't have to worry about tinkering with mommas stove and burning the house down...lol
:

Click to expand...

I have an outside propane turkey frier for my keggle, I also have a 35 quart stainless pot for my stove top.

I'm afraid to use the 35q on the propane though, I worry the soap trick will not work and then I'l have to fight SWMBO and the soot marks.

I can boil on my kitchen stove, it just takes time (hence the creation of the thread, I'd love to tweak the flame up just a bit)

But, I'd love to be able to run through a kit as fast as possible in my warm home rather than freezing my manhood off in the well ventilated garage in front of the turkey frier.

Aside from the foil underneath (which does make a difference, IME) you could build a baffle from aluminum flashing to hold the heat near the pot on the sides (ie, a cylinder about 2" larger diameter than your pot, somewhat shorter than the handles). Depending how that sits it might need some slots on the bottom so the flame gets adequate air, but it should help apply the heat to the pot.

The heat stick idea still applies - no reason you can't combine 1000-1500W of electric (suits a 15 amp 120V outlet just fine) with your gas burner. I'm a bit more cautious than AnOldUR, and would probably pay the gas guy to go over the stove to optimize the heat output rather than messing with the orifices myself.

Like this:

wok ring

?