Hi what did you come up with as a high powered burner? how many btu's? I saw one at lowes, it kicks out 21,000 btu's, i was thinking of getting it for wok cooking, Its about $110. its a single stand alone burner with a swing open top and controls in front. JerryMB

I believe this is done on purpose as I had discovered the same issue with mine when I was on LP. A good friend of mine has a Weber Silver C Series with a side burner and it does the same thing. I think the intention was that if the burner was allowed to run too low, it might blow out. Since the grill comes as an "LP" model, the gas is heavier than air. If the burner was to blow out easily, the gas could build up somewhere lower than the burner and then it could migrate to the mains if they were on. The next thing that could happen is obvious. When I converted to natural gas, I found the low on my side burner to be much better. Of course, natural gas being lighter than air, if it blows out, the gas just dissipates upwards. I don't know if that is a lot better, but at least I know I won't get an explosion. A couple of things you could consider, one would be to convert the grill to natural gas. The other is to make the valve smaller. The way to do this is to first remove the front cover of the grill by removing all of the knobs, then the screws holding each valve to the cover. Next, remove the four screws holding the panel on (two on each end) then you can pull the front panel forward, exposing the wires attached to the igniters. Once you gently pull the wires from the igniter modules, the front cover is free to be removed. Now, you can disassemble the front of the valve for the side burner with two small screws then remove the stem and front of the valve. When you do this, be careful not to lose the spring or "D" ring when you remove the stem. Once this is out, you can remove the brass cone inside the valve, it simply pulls out. If you use needle nose pliers to do this and to hold the cone, this will keep the grease on the cone for smooth turning. If you look at the cone, you will notice a small hole and a large hole. The large one is for the high setting and when the valve is in this position it allows the flow of gas to be controlled by the orifice. When the valve is turned to the small hole, this hole size controls the low setting. I did this successfully on my friends Weber and it worked out nicely. Once you have located the small hole, you have to make it smaller. The only way I have seen this accomplished without replacing the cone, is to solder the small hole shut, and then re-drill it to a smaller size. You will need a numbered drill bit set for this project and (Of course) you will want to turn your gas off first and disconnect and remove the tank just to be safe. I have included a link below, which will show you pictures of what a similar gas valve looks like apart. It is from a Members Mark, but the internal portion of the valve is identical. I would recommend probably starting with a #70 and trying that first. If it blows out too easily then increase it (lower drill number) one size at a time. A #70 should yield about 5500 BTU's with 11" of LP. I am running a #60 on my low setting which yields about 5750 BTU's at 7" of NG, so this should be fairly accurate. I hope this helps and there is also a chart to show you these BTU figures at the link below. Good luck. Here is a link that might be useful: BTU charts and valve pics

You do know that you can search for prior posts? A couple of tips. First, use the search box at the bottom of the page. For reasons I've never understood, it has always worked better for me than the one at the top of the page. For your search terms, try "portable induction" "countertop induction" and "max burton." A second thing: try those searches with google and add "gardenweb" to the search terms (e.g., "gardenweb + max burton"). You will find at least a dozen threads here where portable/countertop units are discussed, sometimes as the main topic and sometimes in the course of other discussions. Also, try searching the chowhound site. I recall at least three long discussions of portable unit, one of which was a very detailed discussion that started with somebody who wanted to use a MB unit for sous vide cooking and found limitations. Here's are links to a couple of the chowhound discussions: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/761432 http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/832571

Every so often, you read about people fully restoring a decades-old gas appliance. There apparently is a market for things such as old O'Keefe & Merritt stoves. And yes, from what I recall, this sometimes requires replacing the enamel coating. So, I know that this is possible. I don't have any idea whether it is cost effective and who would actually do this type of work. But if I was in this situation, I'd start by calling up places that restore old O'Keefe & Merritt stoves and ask nicely if they can offer advice. They might or might not be able to help you directly. But at least, they could probably point you in the right direction. When you have your answer, please report back here. This would be a useful resource to know about for other Houzz forum members.