I bought the Jenn Air 720-0061 LP from Lowes at least 12 or 13 years ago -- must have been around 2005(?) -- I remember that Lowes had a great promotion going on at the time. Anyway - I'm surprised to see the negative experiences reported here (not disputing them at all, just surprised). My own experience has been the opposite. I've had the grill outside in my backyard, and only bothered with the grill cover for part of the first winter. So this grill has lived outside in central NJ for about 13 years. It was excellent for the first few years, after which I noted that the max heat I could obtain seemed to be dropping a bit year by year. This grill actually became something of an fan item on BBQSOURCE-FORUMS.com 13 years ago: you can find threads I participated in back then under the username "Jon". In discussions with others that I "met" on the forum, I learned about proper care of the grill, and a few of us actually got into "modding" the grill as well. The grill itself was made by NexGrill. Maytag owns the Jenn-Air trademark, and licensed it for use with Lowes to promote this product line. (how's THAT for confused branding???). Many many stainless steel grills in the US are actually made by NexGrill or another one of a tiny handful of factories in China that specialize in these. Apparently, the company in the US that sources these from the Chinese factories can spec out the grade of parts used to manufacture their branded product. A lot of the "stainless steel" in products sold here are pretty low grade stainless. For whatever reason, though, it turns out that the Jenn-Air 720-0061 LP from Lowes was built with all high-grade stainless -- and there are no enameled parts. This grill, sitting outside in my yard for 13 years, uncovered, used hundreds of times, has zero rust on it -- none at all. Once I decided that it was worth trying to improve on the cooking temps I was getting with the several-year-old grill, I started by partially dismantling it, removing the stainless steel grids, the "flame tamers" (the deflectors that sit on top of the burners, but under the cooking grids), and the burners themselves -- which are made, btw, out of cast stainless steel. I found that the cooking grids are discolored, but show NO pitting, rust, etc. These are virtually like new with some scrubbing. I cleaned out the Venturi tubes that combine are and gas on its way to the burners: spiders tend to build webs in these, blocking air flow. Once I pulled out the 3 burners, I upended them and tapped them on a large rock: years worth of corroded metal powder came out -- this is natural build up over a period of years, and had also apparently been blocking air/gas flow. The flame tamers (thin steel sheet metal) are definitely corroded -- but usable for now (however, I address this further down in this note). Finally - I decided to try improving further on the max heat situation (you'll see this discussed on the BBQSOURCE-FORUMS in my thread(s) and others). Anyone who knows gas burners already knows this, but I learned that the maximum gas flow is limited by a tiny brass valve orifice: this is a small brass cylinder with a tiny hole in the middle, threaded to fit into the gas line. When you turn the knob on your grill (not the propane tank), the gas flows from the valve and then through the orifice before it can get to the burners. Turns out that if you're a bit handy, increasing the diameter of the orifice every so slightly (we're talking hundredths of an inch increase), enough extra gas flows to yield a significantly hotter flame. I searched the web and found that among all the replacement parts available for this grill, I was able to order 3 brand new brass orifices -- undrilled -- for about $2.50 each (these things are tiny -- about the size of a Tic-Tac). I drilled them out with a hand held drill to a slightly larger opening than the original and then put them and all the other parts back together. All in all, I spend about $7.50 on parts, and put in perhaps 3 hours of labor. In return, I had the original grill -- now several years old -- working better than new, achieving surface temperature of about 650 degrees F. Still all working just fine. I just did another search (Nov 2018) by grill model number, and found that I can STILL get replacement parts for the cooking grid (stainless steel or cast iron -- I prefer steel, but don't need to replace these at all yet), the flame tamers ($60 will get me three of these in stainless steel), and the burners themselves: about $75 each for an exact replacement of the original cast stainless steel items. If the igniters stop working, they can get replaced for $15 to $30 dollars. In essence, my 13 year old grill is still working well, and for perhaps $300 I can replace the burners and flame tamers - which are the ONLY parts showing signs of aging - and make this like new once again. A comparable grill, out of the same quality stainless, would cost far more than that. Admittedly, I'm handy, and like to fix things when I can rather than just trashing and replacing them. This may seem like a bit of a stretch to some readers, but nothing I did was especially difficult, and really wasn't very time consuming at all. Sure - a shiny new grill is always nice, but this one still looks excellent, and works just about like new, after 13 years, with only a small amount of maintenance effort needed. I might replace it -- but I'm wondering how much I'll have to spend to get something that works at least this well, and will last as long as this one has. - Jon

If it has a roaring kind of noise, it's probably flashback. Normally gas is injected in a jet of gas through an orifice into the burner, and the jet of gas sucks air in with the gas through an air shutter. The gas goes through the burner and burns on the surface of the burner. If the gas and air are improperly adjusted, the gas/air combination burns too slowly to get to the top of the burner, and the flame flashes back to burn inside the burner, typically causing a roaring noise. You should have it inspected by a competent repairman who can identify and correct the problem.

No. Shutting it off with the shutoff won't do anything different than turning off the gas at the burners. Only thing to watch is that the shutoff is mounted securely enough to take the abuse of repeated use. Some I've seen are pretty flimsily installed.

@nycbluedevil_gw You said you have the infrared sear zone and 2 normal grates---can you use the infrared zone for anything other than high-heat searing? The Alfresco person told me no--that's either on or off--so now I'm wondering if the space on the 2 standard burners will be enough room for everything else. Or if you sear on the infrared and then turn that one off, might that be used as just a warming zone for food that's done or food that needs indirect heat? We aren't a big steak family, so now I'm wondering if I should get the sear zone! We do mostly turkey burgers (sometimes hamburgers), chicken, vegetables....the occasional pork butt low and slow. I know I could just sear on standard burners with very high heat--is the infrared that much better for that sort of thing?