BBQ Side Burner vs Electric Stove

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Gremlyn

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So my friend is moving and I am getting his grill, which has a side burner. It's probably only 10,000-15,000 BTU, but is that better than my electric stove?

I know I would need to support the side piece for the weight of the pot with wort.
 
So my friend is moving and I am getting his grill, which has a side burner. It's probably only 10,000-15,000 BTU, but is that better than my electric stove?

I know I would need to support the side piece for the weight of the pot with wort.


Depends,. what sort of electric stove do you have. Probably pretty similar.
 
Really crappy, most basic apartment style stove. You can't get a worse stove than this.

I was planning on testing how long it takes to boil a full pot on both the stove and the grill.
 
Really crappy, most basic apartment style stove. You can't get a worse stove than this.

I was planning on testing how long it takes to boil a full pot on both the stove and the grill.

The bonus with the electric stove is that it is pretty direct heat, the propane flame will lose some efficiency because it is blowing a few BTUs in the wind.

1 watt = 3.4 BTUs So you need to figure out how many watts your elements are. You are probably looking at about 5,000 BTUs on the stove top.
 
I'm assuming it's 2000-2500 Watts, which would be ~6000-8000 BTU. SO, theoretically the side burner should be more powerful. Guess I just need to do the boil comparison to see for sure.
 
If you use the stove you dont have have to refill the propane bottle every couple of brews.. That is one plus to using the stove..
 
Fair point on the gas expense, I guess boiling for an hour would chew up a lot.
 
Too much figuring stuff out, I think I'll just find out if I can make the side burner work and if it boils faster just go with it :) I won't hurt to have two places to heat water anyway, especially once I can start doing full boils.
 
Check with the BBQ manufacture to see it a natural gas jet is available, the other question is NG at your house or you propane heated like many members?

I find 15,000 BTU's rather low in heating output besides adding the pressure that is reaching the burner will change your heat output by a large amount. You should deduct what heat passes past the sides of your boil pot not heating where you want it. I was thinking even with electric heating of 11,000 watts for 37,543 BTU's at 100% but using 95% as a true heating transfer of 35,665 BTU's directly into a liquid even with available power still on the lower end of the heating scale. Insulate the boil pot there is a large surface area that can be protected and converted into faster heating times. I'm using this as an example vs those propane units with numbers mentioned of 80,000 to 240,000 plus BTU units. Many members has stated a vast difference in propane burner BTU outputs for the same burner just different suppliers selling the same burner. A little "new math" or stretching the truth here? No one has done a under lab testing conditions reports on all these propane burners and their manufactured claim outputs including the propane PSI at the burner. Wind chill alone will sap the heat away that side burner has to offer. I have a Commercial CharBroil in stainless with a nice looking brass side burner, for up to a 12" frying pan it works great cooking outdoors, larger boil pot I say out of the question. I fry squid outdoors, Never In The House you'll never get the smell out. Trust me on this one this includes a Fry Grand Dad fryer.
 
I use my side burner all the time to heat up a gallon of water for sparge adjustments, etc. Per charbroil, it puts out 13k BTU. That is well above what most "regular" electric stoves put out. I'd be willing to bet you could boil a 2.5 gallon batch pretty easily with a good side burner. The issue would be the weight 32qts would probably exceed the weight limits for the side burner by a good bit.
 
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