Why pay for sheet metal and cheap burners when you can learn, compare, and get a quality grill in the same price range? For Gas Grills 101 check out "How to Choose", "Major Differences", and "What to Look for" at www.picksinc.com/GasGrills/home.htm For Gas Grills 201 check out the "GrillTalk Message Board" at www.picksinc.com/Grilltalk.htm Don't spend $500 or $1000 for a grill that is poorly constructed, made of sheet metal, and has cheap burners!

uh, if you only grill once a year or so, why even buy a grill at all? i mean, just get yourself a weber kettle or something super-basic. you could *rent* a grill once a year for 20 years and still be ahead of the game. i have a weber genesis silver. paid about $350 five years ago for it. it works good.

Spiderrico... I've been wrestling with this decision as well for the better part of the last half year. I just last week ordered the same solution as kkcooks (I think) - a Wolf all-gas with the charbroiler. In the end, I decided to go with an infrared grill, which narrowed it down to the new Monogram, Wolf, and Capital. The high heat capacity was just too good to pass up - cooking on an infrared grill was the closest I could come to the outdoor charcoal experience. Of those three, I think any of the three would have been excellent ranges. Ultimately, it was the burner design, overall design and "fit and finish", reputation for service, identical btu of the other four burners, and local availability that pushed the Wolf to the top. If you can, go cook on the stoves, or at least see them in action. That helped us quite a bit with the final decision. It was because of the demos that a Bluestar, even with the u-shaped grill burner tube, actually remained in the running for quite a while, because we loved the 22k burners. I would have discounted it out of hand because of it's lack of infrared grill. Good luck with your decision! I'll try to post my report once the range is installed and I've had some time to grill on it.

I recalled that I have a work associate that knows some about welding torches so maybe he can tell me how those valves work and if they can be adapted. He and I are both used to thinking creatively. I just wondered if the lever I see on the torches are throttling valves or discrete/discontinuous. Mr.havac seems to indicate that the former is true for cutting torches. I can understand that. If I read into your response correctly, a reasonable gas flow must be needed to cool the tip. That would not be an issue in my application. In fact, I am familiar with the use of many types of compressed and liquefied gasses, flammable, explosive, toxic, inert/asphyxiating. Frankly, propane and natural gas, particularly at the (regulated) pressures I am talking about, are not rocket science. A lot of the risk goes away since this is an outdoor operation. As far as blast cooking goes, wok cooking is pretty much that. You want high heat for very short periods and it is a pain to turn the burner off, relight it and turn the valve several turns to get back to "blast" mode. It just can not be properly done on a home range top unless, maybe, you are cooking one serving. People may say they are stir-frying, but they are really stewing or steaming. I may be able to get away with a 70-80,000 BTU burner, but the first one that I owned was about 150 K, I think. I have not gotten back into that type of cooking since that burner was under a few feet of water for an extended period a couple of years ago. I am finally getting better organized and I need to replace it. Mr.havac, your perspective could use some adjustment. The burners on my rusted cooker is controlled by a valve that takes several turns to open and close. Having a foot-operated valve, full on would be a lower hazard level than the normal valve, under reasonable circumstances. Otherwise, we would not have dead-man switches in some vehicles, and cars would still have hand-operated throttle locks. If I canÂt get something adapted to foot pressure, maybe I will have to go with a valve designed for a gas grill. At least I can go from idle to full-on with a quarter or half turn. Capacity will be an issue and I really have not looked at how those valves are designed wrt connection with the venturi and burner proper. Oh, the other thing it is not real practical to do on a home range is season the wok efficiently. The easiest way is to just coat it with oil and heat it up until the oil flashes. Thanks for your help so far.