Why elevate burner off ground

This may be a dumb question, but I haven't seen anything on why it is done. While watching a few all grain batch videos on YouTube, I see that a lot of people have their burners sitting on top of cinder blocks. Is there some sort of airflow benefit?

I've also seen people have their burners up on top of tables. This doesn't seem all that safe to me, but then again, I am paranoid with fire safety. I have the bayou classic high pressure outdoor cooker from NB. Is their limited heat coming from under these burners, causing little risk? What surfaces/tables are safe to do this to? The one video had a guy using what appeared to be an old dinning room table.

Thanks

 

There's almost no heat coming down, because of the design of the burners and because heat rises. I run mine on a table and have for years, no problems at all. I will someday get a stainless table, and put backsplash around the walls and a hood fan but I don't feel it's necessary.

 

Some raise the burner so you can siphon/drain right from the boil kettle without having to move it.

 

Gets the pot up so its easier to stir and deal with so you don't have to hunch over?

 

This is why I do it. My top of my pot is just about at chest level, making working with it easy. Plus, as someone said above, I just drain it into my fermentor bucket; I never have to handle a 5 gallon pot at all. I clamp my burner down to the top of the table so there's no way for it to move in case I have to slightly move the loaded pot. It's a very stable system.

 

+1. If you ever go beyond 5 gallons, the kettles become essentially impossible to move by a single person, requiring either a pump or enough vertical clearance to move the wort via gravity.

 

I think raising your brew pot makes for easier transfers in most cases.