Category: FAQ

Main concerns: He read the propane (camping) bottle about how to store it.  The label on the bottle says: store in a cool place under 120 degrees (F).  He said that he put the bottle in his garage, but his garage can be hotter than 120 degrees.

Answer: It is true that we should not store a propane bottle anywhere above 120F.  Since inside house is the coolest place compared to yard and garage, storing propane bottle inside house maybe the safest way. Consider a few excerpts of an article “A Safe Fuel” from National Propane Gas Association http://www.npga.org:

• “A propane tank is 20 times more puncture resistant than a typical gasoline, methanol or ethanol tank.” 
• “Propane with air won’t ignite unless the source of ignition reaches at least 940 degrees Fahrenheit. In contrast, gasoline’s source of ignition must reach only 430 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit before igniting.”

Then the question to ask ourselves is: since we park our cars in our garage too, will the gasoline tanks in our cars get into trouble earlier than a propane bottle/tank? For more safety information, we recommend to visit the National Propane Gas Association web site http://www.npga.org.

We always recommend caution when operating with propane gas.  Especially when it is new to you, always give yourself extra time to become familiar with the setup before operation.  If you are comfortable in using a grill, you should not feel any difficulty in using our stove.  More information and why propane is a safe fuel source can be found in The National Propane Gap Association web site http://www.npga.org.

Most gas stations sell the tank and gas together.  Alternatively, hardware stores sell empty tanks and some of them sell propane gas filling too.  A lighter (same as grill lighter) can be picked up at any hardware store or hardware section of drug stores (e.g. Longs Drug).  We are strongly against using matches.

Feedback:  He said: First of all, you have to use it in the backyard, so you have to get all your ingredients there.  Then you can’t put things on the grass, so you’ll have to set up a table.  Then, after you cooked a dish, you’ll have to rush back to the kitchen, which is far away from his backyard, and wash the wok.  Then come back for the second dish, wash the wok, and so on.  “Yeah, the cooking time is shortened, but I spent more time rushing in and out of the house.”

Answer:  I appreciate this feedback.  My neighbor (an American), who has been using one of our sample stoves for a while now, also has the same comment.  We are working hard coming up solution for this.  So far we setup a table for all ingredients and have a tray of all spices.  The table is setup besides the stove.  We move all ingredients and the spice tray before starting the stove to cook.  Some of our video demos show this arrangement.

Another trick is to organize and cook white dishes together and then black (or red) dishes. White dishes use salt and sugar as the main spices while black ones use soy sauce or any colorful spice.  Additionally, we cook fish/sea food dishes at the end to avoid fishy taste on our vegetable dishes.  We have to admit that not able to wash our wok in between did pose a problem to us at the beginning.  By following some simple sequence, however, we never have to wash our wok in between any more.  Hope this helps.

Feedback: He said that a lot of flies came to his cooked food.  Getting the cooked dish inside right after is not convenient.

Answer: We have plastic boxes which have tight covers.  Once a dish is cooked, we put it into a box which would not give any smell to us, nor to flies.  Occasionally, we have guests, then we put cooked foods to plates and then immediately transfer them to inside the house, thanks to extra hands available.  One benefit is that our guests do not feel bored and start to feel helpful in terms of creating their own dinner.  If you have kids around, you may be able to use this to ask help from them and have activity together.

Feedback: He said that after he started cooking, his neighbor poked his head over the fence to see what’s going on.  He said his neighbor is a Chinese.  What if you have an American neighbor?

Answer:  We would view this as a good thing.  My neighbor (an American) got to know it and starts to use the stove for his daily dinner now and loves to do away of all those oily smoke residue if he had to cook in their kitchen.

Feedback:  Why?  Because it’s easy to spill something on the side of the stove.  Then when you move the stove inside to the garage, the spill attracts insects and ants. 

Answer:  We would not deny this possibility.  However, we would like to mention that a grill will do much worse, simply by considering meats are stuck on grill after being cooked.  On the contrary, since a wok is bigger than the stove, it is hard for any meat or vegetable pieces to go inward to be stuck on the stove ring.  Even let’s assume this happens, the stove will be able to dry the pieces pretty well because of high temperature during cooking.  We have been putting our stove beside a bucket flower plant for a half year.  All what we notice about is army of ants march up and down on the plant, instead on the stove.  You can see the violet flower plant beside the stove on our long leg stove product picture (PowerFlamer PFL) on our product page.  By the way, we never need to clean the stove since we built it half year ago. We simply let the heat do the work.

Answer: We agree that components from high pressure propane industry need to be improved.  They are confusing to use.  At the mean time, if we give ourselves some time to get familiar with the switch, it might help.

Feedback: He said that because I said the stove is powerful, he shortened the cook time, and then he discovered that the dishes is not cooked well, so he re-cooked it.  So the stove is not as powerful as I told him.

Answer:  The power of the stove is adjustable.  At its high end, it delivers 137,000BTU/hr (about 40kW).  A regular kitchen electric stove is about 4kW.  Of course, if the stove is adjusted to give minimum power, which we usually do before putting all ingredients on the wok, then it may not be as powerful as it is thought of.  One of our sample stove goes to a Mom and Dad.  Their first time cooked dishes were also raw.  After getting used to the stove, they recover and start to make use of the extra power from the stove. One year later, their feedback is that they love the stove very much!

Feedback: Every time he has to go through the routine of using the lighter.

Answer: This concern has been expressed to us before and we are delaying coming up solution because the stove ring during cooking is fairly hot. Any electric wire is not able to withstand that temperature.  So far what we found is, since we need to adjust the regulator (red cap) anyway, lightening a lighter does not add that much work.