Doesn't sound all that long to me but there are so many variables, one of which will definately give you better performance, and that is a larger diameter vessle.

If you want to boil water fast on a gas stove for thing like tea or coffee, I don't think anything can beat (on gas) a simplex windsor copper kettle for gas stoves. I boil half a gallon in minutes.

I'll bite.

Vollrath 4.5qt 18 gauge SS pan, about 8.5" wide and 4" tall with matching lid.

{{gwi:1391561}}

12 cups tepid-ish water (as full as is I was adding dry pasta at boil)
Front center burner
600cfm hood on low (2 speeds and I couldn't face using high this late)

Full, rolling boil at 8:18

I live just above sea level near the Puget Sound.

Um, OK ... 12 cups = (12*8) = 96 oz; 1 gal = 4qt = 4(4*8) = 128 oz ... is that correct? -- So this is 75% as much water (duh, which could have been realized in many faster ways). So you'd expect 9.4 minutes, and you have a larger-bottomed pan by far so this seems approximately as expectedly-same. so to speak.

FWIW, here are a couple of things you might like to see. I can't give this first one any credence though, because there is not one controlled variable. It has been posted a few times on these boards.

http://applianceadvisor.com/content/peoples-cooktop-test

The pot you are using as the interface is a huge part of the equation. Of course you want to have the burner adjusted properly as well. A simple thing is to use a wider pan to capture more of the heat on the higher settings. I have used a skillet to heat water to make a small amount of pasta when in a hurry.;-)
Here is an interesting article about capturing heat in a pot.

Another interesting site is "Cooking for Engineers"

You've got the BTUs and you can put them on steroids with the right pan!

Here is a link that might be useful: Improving Range-Top Efficiency with Specialized Vessels

Well that's fun -- not sure I have the fortitude for going through it though! While I agree nothing's controlled, it is interesting to see how many variables might potentially want to be controlled. Whew... pain.

In the end my water boiling is hardly ever a rate-limiting step, so I don't think I'll be delving terribly much deeper into this. Someone had posted wanting the info a while back; just trying to oblige. Truthfully it's not really a - ahem - burning, but rather, perhaps, simmering issue, as it were, for me!

How on earth could you keep those fins on the bottom of the pots clean? Interesting for sure, but practical? What if you put the fins on the grate and not the pot? Might be functionally equivalent (maybe not in terms of heat transfer, but only in terms of 'capturing/focusing' the heat), sort of, easier to keep clean and less yucky?

OMG! OMG! These are already on the market!

Where can I buy a Turbo Pot?

I remember buying something by that name when I was in college...

Did you find it shortened your baking times?

... and does it inform your moniker?

Found the answer. They're available at Dvorsons online

Now I definitely want to see comparisons between CC, BS and lower BTU burners using these pots!!

Ha! You can "like" them on facebook!

Here is a link that might be useful: Turbo Pots

Not counting lost heat radiated as the pot gets hotter, you are going to need about 1200BTU to raise 1 gallon of water from about 60F to 212F. Maybe 60% of the heat is going around the pot, so that means you need to consume enough gas to make maybe 3000BTU. You also have to heat your aluminum pot -- if the part getting heated weight 2.5 pounds, that brings you up to a bit over 3200BTU required (plus radiated loss). You also have to heat up the grate the burner sits on.

12.5 minutes @ 18000BTU/hr is 3750BTU, so pretty close to expectation, and on the correct side. The 40% efficiency is a number I've seen, but it can't be absolute and will vary with pot size for a given burner. That low efficiency of heat delivered to the pot is why the room heats up much more with gas than with induction or regular electric burners.

I just ordered a Turbo Pot. I'll report back when it comes via UPS and I try it out.

Cooking vessels certainly matter, but the glaring omission here is starting temp! Aliris doesn't specify, Breezy says "tepid-ish."

On my CC, it took close to 15 minutes for a full gallon to come to a rolling boil (8" diameter aluminum pot), but my starting temp was cold tap water - 46 deg.

Dictionary.com defines tepid as "moderately warm, lukewarm." All of which are subjective, so I chose room temp - defined (by me) as 70 deg - to bring 3 quarts to a boil like Breezy did. 8:40.

stumpedfood: Them's fighting words! "I started it from room temperature -- whatever that is in socal on a cold day about 3 miles and 80 feet elevation from the ocean" So OK, that's not very precise. It was low 60's during the day, nighttime had fallen, but the water had probably not dropped appreciably in temperature. I didn't measure it but ... but, well at first I thought you didn't either; now I'm thinking "46 deg" is an actual measurement from you.

Kidding aside, I agree, though, that it's important - I think any or all of these starting conditions might matter ... if there were anything we were actually testing. I was only giving a vague sense of what was going on; someone asked.

It's helpful to cess out all the variables to try to control should someone actually want to do this experiment right. That includes minutiae like calibrating and standardizing thermometers and measurement techniques and maybe air pressure? and standardizing vessels ... all pretty silly if for no other reason than: what are we testing?

Oops, Aliris, I'm sorry - I didn't pick up on that you were describing the water temperature!