BARBEQUE BURNERS – Types??

I thought it would be good to talk about the various types of BBQ burners and what they do..

Cast Iron Burners:

These are the normal (well used to be) burners that come with many barbeques, problem is tha nowadays light weight steel burners seem to be taking over. The cast iron burner is reliable, cheap and will last a good lengh of time. The downside is that they are heavy (cost more to transport) and will rust over time.

Tubular Burners:

These are mainly the ones used these days, they are made of steel have a lower megajoule rating and are very light. Problem is that the ports (holes in the side) can block up easily and they can rust out in a fairly short space of time, especially in the cheaper Barbeques. To get round the heat factor, manufacturers can put quite a few of these under the plates and grills allowing more heat to get to the food. If used on conventional Barbeques they can sometimes not produce the right heat but on the Barbeques Galore, single, twin or triple grill serie, also the Gasmate Oddessey range or Weber Q's they are very effective due to the design of the BBQ itself.

Infra Red Burners:

Most of you will have seen these types of burners. Realatively new to the market (about 3 years). These shown are from the Barbeques Galore Elite BBQ. They are called Radiant Quartz Burners (RQT's) and work exactly like charcoal, once heated up they have a similar effect searing the food that they hit. They are expensive but effective provided they are allowed time to heat up. 10-15 minutes is the normal heat time, this may sounds long but think of it as heating up the 'beads' on your charcoal BBQ, you wouldn't put the meat on as soon as you lit up one so this is the same, they have to be hot to be effective.