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Cooking Outdoors

Virco temperature gauge

24 years ago

Turned on the grill on high to pre-heat it tonight. Went back out 5 minutes later and the clear cover had popped off and the gauge was warped. (Cover was about 5 feet away). Anyone have any similar experiences? Hard to believe it would get so hot it would break the gauge.

Going to call customer support Monday to see about getting a new one.

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Comments (5)

dwayneq
24 years ago
Rowdyti,

I didn't have my gauge actually pop apart like yours but it did stick at 410 degrees after two uses. To Virco's credit I called them up and they sincerely apologized and sent one that day at no charge. Excellent customer service!
delray
24 years ago
Yesterday I cooked very thick (2") porkchops and was preheating the grill as I knew I would need to bake a little with the searing. Anyway I let it go a little to long and it was at around 520 degrees on pre-heat, but luckily no warped guage. I do have yellow flames, but have not worried that much about that. Other claimed they got to about 450 max. I wonder if my orange flames could attribute the heat? I need to look into this forum to see where the adjustment is to get the red out?

BTW, the porkchops were incredible. I have never cooked anything this good in the kitchen!
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bsbbq
24 years ago
Delray,
I think the 450 max is what you get when (if) you convert to NG. I have been able to get over 500 as you have with LP. I am in the process of converting to NG now, so I will keep you posted as to the accuracy of this claim. I got the NG line ran to my "Q" yesterday and purchased the 12' NG line with quick disconnect from Home Depot. I am just waiting on the kit from Virco now.
As far as the flame adjustment goes I had the same yellow tips on my flames. After adjusting mine, it did not seem to make a difference in the color of the flame. We are at the same altitude so I am sure that your results will be the same. As long as you are not getting soot anywhere then I would not worry about it. If you do want to try and experiment, you can adjust the venturis for the burners as follows:
Remove the drip pan, open the doors and lay down, looking up into your grill with a phillips screwdriver. Where the burner meets the valve, you will see a small screw in the venturi adjustment. If you undo the screw, you can rotate the short tube around the venturi, thereby increasing or decreasing the amount of air. If you increase the air flow it will decrease the yellow tips. Like I said, I have mine on wide open and didn't notice any difference. I called Virco on this and they suggested it might be the altitude here, and suggested some smaller orifices to compensate. I haven't really worried about it because the amount of yellow is minute and I don't have any soot. I do know that blue flames do get hotter, but my grill gets plenty hot so I don't think I am going to worry about it. At least not until I do complete my NG conversion and readjust if needed. Good luck.

bsbbq
clovercp
24 years ago
There have been a number of posts about how hot the grill can get. Mostly, I've seen 550-600 deg. here (I assume measured at the hood level by the Virco temp gauge). We love grilled steaks seared hot and cooked fast. Can anyone confirm that the grill gets hot enough to sear and cook a great steak? Any "hands-on" experience so far? I'll be using LP always. From my experience, I think that 550 deg. is probably the minimum for a really good searing. What do you think? Thanks in advance.
spambdamn_rich
24 years ago
I have cooked a couple of thick boneless rib steaks, and the grill had no problem searing and cooking them. In fact, I had to lower the flame to reduce flareups.

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