Simmer rates are hard to compare - some manufacturers give BTUs, others give temperature. The 9000 BTU number is almost definitely a maximum - the 750 could be a minimum. The only real way to compare is to try them out if possible or at least get input from owners. I have a DCS and the simmer on all the burners is incredibly low - each burner has a separate simmer ring - I've left things on accidently for quite a while and nother has boiled down. I know Wolf owners are happy with the simmer on their ranges - both the sealed and semi-sealed ones. Bluestar owners have been able to adjust their burners to provide a very low simmer as well.

The Bluestar simmer is 130 degrees which is 380 btus on the 10,000 btu burner, the 15,000 btu will simmer at 142 degrees which is 580 btus, this has been tested several times

& the 750BTU spec is almost definitely the minimum at simmer and not the maximum that that burner would put out.

So there you have it - the simmers are 750BTU for the Berta and as guadalupe says, 380BTUs for the Bluestar.

Thanks, all. This information is very helpful.

There is a blog on this forum that is titled bluestar cooking demo and it shows a live demo of the bluestar simmering and melting chocolate plus more

At the risk of repeating myself, specifying a simmer in degrees is pure nonsense invented by appliance marketing departments, completely without meaning. They should be rated in BTU/hr (or kilowatts for electric elements). If a manufacturer you are interested in provides only degrees and not BTU/hr, you should treat everything they way with extreme caution.

One nice feature on the BlueStar, whether intended or not, is that you can pull out the burner grate and give a 1/4 turn and when you put it back in it sits up a couple extra inches over the flame. You don't need to do this on the simmer burner since its so low already, but its great if you're simmering more than 1 item and need to use one of the other burners to simmer.

Yea! Go Markw! That spec by itself gives me a subcuticular itch that is absolutely unscratchable, too. I've posted on its nonsensicality, too, but it continues to thrive. The best dismissal of that nonsense came from the Appliance advisors who said that the vendors (DCS, then GE) were "guilty of circulating an oxygen deprived statistic" in that spec. I don't imagine your protests will register either.

In truth, I'm coming to believe that these are the units used to circulate burner power in professional cooking parlance where the measurement specifications have indeed been formalized (type and size of cooking pot, type and qty of liquid (which I think is water)) and assumed but then not cited again. But in non-pro circles: I don't know what they are, most non-pro cooking types don't seem to know what they are, they've never been defined even in small type anywhere I've seen from the vendors and therefore this lone temperature spec for a thermal output is therefore the only bit that hangs around like the cheshire cat's grin.

I agree the temperature spec for simmer may be flaky but I can tell you from personal experience that the simmer on the DCS burners is incredible - I wouldn't want it any lower or any different - and I really like that fact that all the burners have it. On the other side, my range has four 16K burners and one 17.5K burner and in practice I don't really notice any difference. For the most part, all of the pro-style ranges are pretty close in their capabilities.

mindstorm, I realize it's almost hopeless but you gotta keep trying. Maybe it's my engineering background but it makes me crazy when people get the units wrong, as when they say on the TV news that this new geothermal power plant will "provide enough electricity to power 10,000 homes for year". I can forgive people here when they use just "BTU" as shorthand for BTU/hour - even though it's wrong, everybody's talking the same language. But degrees for a simmer rating, that's not just wrong but close to fraud on the part of the manufacturer and most consumers apparently don't have the scientific knowlege to realize why it doesn't make sense.

As you point out, you could make a case for such a spec if they also specified what was *on* the burner but that never seems to happen. If there is any basis at all for these numbers in the form of some testing, my guess is it involves a very large pot of water, probably black on the outside to enhance radiative heat dissipation - and with the lid off, of course. Something like a twelve quart, black anodized stock pot full to the brim, no lid. Oh, and of course you'd have the room very chilly, maybe conduct the test in a walk-in refrigerator :) Since they don't tell us what is used or how the test is performed, you have to assume they use whatever would give them the best possible number.

Really? I would love to argue the point even tho' it's way off topic. But in the spirit of better understanding...

Yes, these numbers are and can be confusing and misleading. There are indeed too many variables to take them more than with a grain of salt. Still...

Most manufactures list power output and max BTU/hr. (please, everyone drops the hour, but that's not criminal).

Minimum BTU/hr were given above, if accurate, that's a start. Certainly the simmer can be adjusted, along with air mixture, regulator pressure, etc..

Cooks, (there's an idea!) who make candy or delicate sauces are used to using a thermometer for low temperature cooking. So while you might think it's completely unfair, if an average room temperature is used, say 70 degrees, after a certain time,let's say 20 minutes?- long enough to bring the pot and what's in the pot (let's say a liter of water) up to temperature... this gives a cook a reasonable idea of what temp.they can hold a sauce pan of chocolate, or sauce!

Sure it can be manipulated. Pot size, material, air convection..etc.

But really. When the BTU's get low enough, things start to equalize. Like a butter dish left above an old range with a small pilot flame. It's never going to burn.

Alright, I've had my say. In principle I agree with you. But your example I find a bit dramatic.

alexr, pal, no call for the constipation. You brought up an excellent example - cooks making candy or sauces want to hold the contents of their pot at a certain fixed, (low or high) temperature. Well, wouldn't you say that it would matter whether they are heating a cup of sugar or a pint of it or a gallon sized pot of it? Or whether it is a cup, pint or gallon of milk instead? Wouldn't you say that the output POWER would need to be different depending on whether you're making a cup or a gallon or any item? Would you imagine that the same simmer would hold either pot at the same 130degrees - regardless whether you've got a cup there or a gallon? Wouldn't you expect to adjust the flame to produce the same constant temperature for the same two volumes of even the same commodity?

Well, that is the VERY reason that to quote an output POWER measure makes so much more sense than a temperature number. 'Coz, you know, I could decide to be a perverse consumer and decide to make a single truffle for myself, decide to simmer (okay, scald, really) my thimble-sized quantity cream and then be livid that my "130degree simmer burner" BURNT my thimble of cream instead of gently scalding. Citing specs like this doesn't make sense. Sure, I'll grant that indoor ambient temperatures and the color of the walls do become secondary parameters, but frankly, the coveted "130deg simmer" doesn't even stand up to the grossest and most basic parameter: volume and specific heat capacity of the food i.e. how much and what sort of food is to be simmered.

I promise you, you bring me the smallest (lowest power) flame and I can find a quantity of water small enough that I can boil it on it (boiling point of water being 212F >> 130deg). :-)

Ha! I thought I was reasonable. A cup or two of water, small pot, simmer away. I believe, at low BTU's my theory of equilibrium and evaporation. Boiling?, I doubt it. But I'll get out my digital thermometer with probe and get back to ya.

It's gonna have to be water, I just drank all the milk!

Concerning the Bluestar simmer. Put 2 cups of water in a 2 qt. sauce pot (French copper,stainless lined)... plugged in the digital probe. After two hours on simmer, the temperature was 136 degrees, and the water, when poured out had been reduced to 3/4 of a cup. Temp. never went above 150 degrees.

Did the same experiment with a 1 qt. stainless clad pot and only 1/4 cup water. Temperature reached 146 degrees and stayed until water completely evaporated. Took approx. 45 minutes.

alexr, mindstorm is theoretically correct - you could make water boil on the smallest flame you could imagine. To make that happen, though, your "pan" might need to be the size of a teaspoon or less. In a practical situation, as you point out and showed, an equilibrium will be reached where energy losses from evaporation at the top of the uncovered pan and heat radiated from the sides of the pan match the heat added from the flame.

What your experiment does is make my point, that the temperature depends on what you put *on* the flame. I'll bet your stainless clad pot would get plenty warmer than 146 F, for example, if you left it on after the water evaporated. And the temperature would certainly go up if you had the pots covered.

The point I was making before (and OK, I exaggerated for effect, maybe appliance manufacturers wouldn't do the test in a walk-in fridge. Maybe.) is that as long as gullible consumers take simmer temperature specs seriously, you can bet manufacturers will treat themselves to the most favorable test conditions possible. That means, for one thing, a large pot. It means it's going to be uncovered. Also, the simmer temp will be directly affected by the temperature of the room. If the temperature of that large pot is going to come out 150 in a 75 degree room, it would be 140 in a 65 degree room. What do you guess their choice might be?

Hey Einstein alls I am doing is simmering a sauce in a small pan, and it works, I am not trying to send rockets to the moon

guadalupe, I've done my best to explain why simmer temperature specs are marketing BS and that burner output in BTU/hr is the only spec that matters. If you want to stay ignorant, of course that's up to you.