I put the wok burner (137,000 BTUs 9") through a complete test last week for about 8 straight hours - and I am quite satisfied.

Name:

Barry, Canada

Feedback:

I put the wok burner (137,000 BTUs 9″) through a complete test last week for about 8 straight hours – and I am quite satisfied, although I am going to have to adjust my cooking technique to its high performance demands.
A few questions and comments:
At almost full heat, the flames jump outside and under the wok holder. In fact, if I left this for more than a few seconds, it might start to melt the hose.
Any advice.
I also find that I have to be very careful of sauces that contain sugar (marinated meat, tomato, Indonesian bottled hot sauces, etc.). The sauce caramelises on the wok. I can remove it only by removing the food and turning the wok to high heat. This creates a layer of charcoal which does separates from the metal fairly easily. I am concerned that if I do this often, the wok may crack although it is pretty good carbon steel and I have been using it for many years.
Again, any advice?
Other than that, I am very satisfied. For your information, I started by making a vegetable stir fry for about 10 people – fairly simple, quick and tasty. The next day I made a sauce for a paella – three hours of simmering down a tomato based sofrito – for a dinner for 60 people. Then someone brought over a vat of Chilli which I heated up on top of the work burner. When that was done someone else had the fixings for Mexican carnitas – marinated meat, stir fried in the wok. Then the wok was used to reheat the tortillas.
My wife no longer thinks I am completely nuts for buying this.
And again – how did you end up doing this – or are you really a rocket scientist who does this wok thing on the side?
I did try turning the wok burner upside down and running it full throttle. I got about three feet of lift off (just kidding!).

Our Answer (if any):

Thank you very much for your feedback.

The two flame windows do come out with extensive heat when high throttle is used. Typically people use metal handle wok on the flame window side. For PowerFlamer stove and your existing wok, you can try to position the wok such that both handles of the wok can avoid the flame windows, since the windows is less than half of the stove perimeter.
The phenomenon of fast caramelisation is evidence of high heat produced by the stove. We would suggest to use more cooking oil with higher power throttle setting. Vice versa is true also, less cooking oil for lower power setting.

Also thank you for asking why I have a PhD title while doing a stove business. So far I have been trying to avoid telling my story. Since you asked twice, I will just have to tell from now on.

My PhD is in electrical engineering. I came over to USA to get my PhD education in 1990s. After my degree, I move to several states to work in the field of electrical engineering. By renting apartments, I discover that at end of leasing term, the fan on top of the kitchen always is clogged with smoked oil. Besides, the apartment is also filled with cooking smell every evening after I cooked. The third problem I had is that I had to wait for a long time for the cooking pan to heat up.

So a friend of mine and I started to try out an outdoor turkey fryer in Wisconsin (he is on mechanical engineering side and I’m on the user side). What I found is that an outdoor turkey fryer stove can not be used to do stir frying appropriately. After a couple years of usage and modification, the stove you have is the outcome.

As for now, I’m still working full time for electrical engineering firm(s). Making stove and selling is just my hobby business (some time I got criticized by my wife that I do not maintain enough health (by working on it whenever order comes) that I get cold/flu easily and pass it to our 1 year old every time). The main reason for keeping it through so far is because I desire to see people using our patents and ideas. If there is any company likes to continue on it, we are more than willing to pass the business along.

Let me know if you have any more question.