I understand commercial woks run at 125,000 BTU+. So it is not surprising that even with 25K BTUs, we still don't get there.

We have 15 K burners now and I consider that the minimum for decent performance at home.

For our new house, we have a dedicated induction wok. I am hoping it does the job. We will see in 4 weeks or so when we move in :).

Note that higher BTUs also increase the risk of fire. The above induction wok is able to set its oil on fire without even trying! Commercial kitchens have industrial hoods and often sprinklers.

Having cooked with jet burners in a restaurant, I'll say that most people would find that kind of power scary. I certainly would *not* install one of these in the home.. at least without active fire suppression and a huge hood. Imagine going from cold to literally red hot in a minute flat. I loved cooking on it but realistically, it's hardly necessary in the home.

I think anything 15k or above in the home is probably as good as it's going to get without extra safety issues. I'm surprised that you had trouble browning two breasts of chicken in one batch on the 24k wolf burners. I've got a Bluestar with 22k burners and at full blast, I can maintain a constant "sear" with a 12" cast iron skillet filled with meat. What I mean is it can keep the heat up high enough that the released liquid burns off immediately.

With wok cooking, I can say that 22k is very nice to have and more would be better but I'd hardly consider it necessary. I average around 4-6 dishes every time I use my wok and have done up to 8 dishes in a row with no rest time in between. Cycling from rinse to reheat to cook, I can do about a dish every 5min on average depending on the dish. The cooking experience is extremely good with the Bluestar 22k burner. I've mentioned in other posts that the pace of cooking on this burner is much closer to restaurant settings than I've experienced in the home and it's thoroughly enjoyable.

Frankly, I would focus less on the BTU and more on the heat pattern. For wok cooking, the best is high intense heat in the center. Open burners tend to generate the most even heat distribution whereas sealed burners tend to distribute less heat in the center and more around the edges. I'd say anything with an open burner north of 15k BTU/hr is good enough for the home. The effort necessary for the next level to get a meaningful difference is simply too much IMHO.

With regard to simmer, most ranges at this level have special simmer burners that can maintain an extremely low simmer. The simmer on the other burners are likely fine for most purposes so I personally don't see any problems on that end.

Well, if my next range had heat similar to that commercial Wolf (24K BTU I think), I suppose it would be pretty good. Maybe I will leave enough space to add a wok range later, if need be.

My reservations about the amount of heat the Wolf was providing are kind of subtle. For example, the chicken is cut in 1/2" pieces and is wet with marinade. It goes into the wok, I'd ideally like it to be seared brown on the outside, but that would have to happen fast enough that the small piece is still moist and not overcooked on the inside. That was not happening on the Wolf, not in the batch sizes I was doing. I can certainly think of work arounds - smaller batches, more oil, an iron wok not a thin steel one. So, I guess it's okay.

But I think I wouldn't want any less heat than that commercial Wolf.

So, what is the residential-legal range that is able to deliver the most heat to a wok bottom? Is it Bluestar?

Best for wok cooking is probably a turkey-fryer propane-fired burner; fun, but not for indoors. Past that, BlueStar probably has the best combination of pattern and output.

I looked up the specs for my existing range at home. 17K BTU sealed burner on the left front. Okay, so I have now experienced the difference between 17K BTU sealed and 24K BTU open. That was instructive.

Without reading Gardenweb, I would never have realized this difference. Thanks to you guys, I am now more able to spec out the kitchen that will work for me.

Something else you have to take in account with the large burners at full throttle is smoke removal. I think it takes 800 CFM @ 22k BTU and a higher rate would even be better. 24K BTU is a huge chunk of your total homes air conditioning 2 tons to be exact. Add a second cook at your range @ twin full throttle you are up to 50 k or 4 tons ac load . That 125k wok would be about 10 ton air conditioning load. Somewhere around 30K a burner turns your cozy little kitchen into a commercial sweatshop kitchen.

I believe those flow rates are a little high. The recommendations I've seen for 36" residential pieces are in the 600-1200 CFM range depending on if you have/use a top-surface grill or not. Vent hoods for ranges are primarily to remove grease, smoke, steam, and the like, then secondarily for heat (most of which, you hope, goes into heating your food).

Yes, if you leave your range on 24x7, then with 1 Ton of A/C = 12,0000 BTU/hr, you'd need to increase your A/C by a couple of tons per burner (or turn down your furnace). Then again, I don't know many people that run their residential ranges full-bore for anywhere near that long. It wasn't a problem when normal gas ranges were running 10kBTU/hr per burner; this is basically only twice that.

johnliu,

Yes, wet meat will be hard to overcome in the home setting. There are a couple of techniques that you may or may not like but they do help.

1. Drain the meat. You probably already do this but make sure when you add the meat you're not pouring the marinate in with it. I've been able to sear a half chicken with bones that's been cut in chucks with a 22k burner in one batch with good results. The marinated can be added once the meat is browned since you'll probably need more liquid at that point any ways.

2. More oil.. I know this isn't PC but add a bit more oil often helps searing. Believe it or not, oil actually holds more heat than the wok (assuming you don't use cast iron) and that can help when searing. Even in the restaurant, it's common to use a good amount of oil for the first pass of meat. Most of this oil is pored off after the meat is browned so the amount of oil left in the dish is not excessive.

3. Had a bit of corn starch in the marinade. You can add at the end or in the beginning of the marinade process. This binds the liquid more and prevents it from coming out in floods. Don't add too much or things will come out clumpy. Just get it so the marinated is not pooling. Most restaurant style presentation of stirfry is thickened with corn starch in the end anyways so this actually reduces the amount you add in the end. This doesn't replace draining though. It's always a good idea to keep the ingredients you add as dry as possible.

Not sure if you've ever cooked on a commercial wok burner but the difference goes beyond just moving faster. You have to adjust the way you do things and often the order you do them in. Grease fires are common in a wok powered by more than 100k BTU/hr so you'll need to know how to deal with that as a reflex. All your ingredients had better be ready or you may find yourself burning your dinner. I've found that somewhere in the range of 20-30k BTU/hr is about right in the home for wok cooking without the additional fire precautions. I'm quite happy with 22k indoors. I'd love about 30-33k like the Garland or Vulcan commercial ranges but beyond that would be difficult and possibly dangerous in the home.

sfjeff brought up outdoor cooking on a turkey fryer and it's a great idea. I've done exactly that. Most turkey fryers are around 30-60k burners. I think mine is rated at 45-50k max. This setup is good but still not ideal. The "grate" on the turkey fryer burner is not super stable for the wok and the wok rests a bit high so there's a big gap between the wind guard and the side of the wok. Finally, they are a bit low usually. I had to stoop down to use mine. That was before I bought the Bluestar. Now, it's simply not worth the effort to move everything outside and break my back. I can probably shave off a bit of preheat/cooking time by using the turkey fryer but the results are the same and I don't really find the 22k burner lacking in power in comparison. I've gotta be able to get true commercial wok burner power to make it worthwhile.

If you are serious about wok cooking, have a space outside away from anything flammable including overhanging trees, and have good weather most of the time, then you can consider the link below. I'm planning to build a little outdoor stirfry kitchen for when we have outdoor parties in the summer. Take a look at the link below. This item plus a solid table and near by faucet would make a workable outdoor setup. No hood required. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Outdoor wok burners...

Thanks, those are great tips.

I think I might try marinating, then draining, refrigerating, and dusting w/ corn starch. I'm thinking the refrigerating will dry the meat surface a bit, the colder interior might be more resistant to overcooking, and the corn starch dusting might seal the meat a bit more? I will also try more oil - I don't have a problem with oil, really - and may buy an iron wok - I just have thin steel ones.

I've been putting the corn starch in the marinade and draining before placing the meat in the wok.

I'm likely not brave enough for a 100K BTU commercial wok burner at home. However, I'm still mulling over the range options. The Bluestar sounds pretty darn good, actually.

Unfortunately, in Oregon you can't count on cooking outdoors. Even if you're sheltered from the rain, it is damp and cold all winter. This ain't California, alas.

It's pretty good you came up with refrigeration. That's another restaurant trick although we usually mixed the corn starch in before refrigeration. Honestly, that was more so there would be less additional prep time before cooking. We'd prepare the anticipated morning/noon batch of meat and put it on the cold table. Then once the order comes in, just grab and go. In general, I simply don't put that much marinade to require much draining if at all.

Honestly with 22k or more, the carbon steel woks work best IMHO. Cast iron is much heavier and takes longer to heat up. It does retain heat better but I've found that when I need to go from sear to simmer quickly, cast iron can over cook things a bit. That's of course the way I'm use to wok cooking. When I use my cast iron skillet, I usually turn off/down the flame a full minute before I need it to stop cooking so it isn't that hard to adjust. I'd try out your steel wok on your new range before going out and getting a cast iron one.

Lucky for me, I'm in California which means I can pretty much cook outside year round. Oregon or Washington would be tough. For indoor, definitely check out Bluestar if you're interested in wok cooking. I can certainly vouch for it's ability in this area. If you haven't already, go to their website and check out their videos. They've go several focused on wok cooking.

BTW, sorry for my dismal spelling in my last post. Hit submit before I proofread it. :)

Good luck.

So, how do you put out a grease fire? I read that in your post, and realized I have no idea. I assume you don't grab your fire extinguisher and make a mess of the whole kitchen . . .

Have a lid for your wok and be ready to put it on quickly. That should do the trick. Worse thing is picking up the thing and trying to take it some place....

In the home, lid is your best bet. It's the safest first reaction. One thing that works if there is not a whole lot of oil, which is typically the situation with a wok, is to add more oil. This seem counter intuitive but adding more cool oil reduces the temperature in a very non-disruptive way. Most flare ups in a wok can be put out simply by turning the burner down or off followed by cool oil or lid. The problem with the lid is that it actually contains the heat but removes oxygen so once you lift the lid, it could easily flair up again when you lift the lid so be careful.

What usually happens with a high power burner is the oil catches fire during the preheat of the wok. If so, add a bit of cool (room temp) oil to put out the immediate flames and then start cooking by adding the meat. Once the cooking starts, it's easier to control since there's more in the wok than just a thin layer of oil. Be careful with this method though. You have to know when to use it and when to pull out the lid or fire extinguisher.

Actually, I think he worse thing would be to use water. Second, is to move it off the stove. :)

I have a 17k sealed gas burner on my fairly run-of-the-mill Kenmore and I find the power sufficient, and sometimes more than sufficient. Once it's heating the pan, I have to be ready to go with whatever I'm cooking.

I guess what I'm saying is, the higher the burner heat, the more organized you need to be. If you're a little slow and dreamy when you cook, like me, you'll end up with a smoky kitchen and overheated oil.

Also, I'm beginning to question whether high-heat cooking is the healthiest way to prepare meat, given that we now know it's not such a great idea to eat a lot of grilled meat.

I'm torn on the issue. I like the responsiveness, but I don't like how it makes cooking a little more hectic for me, and I'm trying to cut down on seared meat in general.

Do the higher BTU burners help with making jams and candies that involve boiling the product to a particular temperature? That is, bring things to boil and other various candy stages (soft ball, hard crack, etc) more quickly?

Higher BTU/hr, within reason, will allow you to boil water (and things in water baths) more quickly. There you have a larger mass you are trying to heat and little chance of "burning" the water.

With candy making the temperature rise is, as I understand it, related to the amount of water driven off (which requires heat), but now you are heating a relatively small mass amount of sugar solution which can burn. I don't know that the higher output burner would speed the process for the quantities that a home cook generally makes. Do you run your current burner on full when you make candy now?

I visited my aunt this weekend and noticed she has a "pre-Bluestar" by which I mean a residential Garland that looks exactly like a 30" Bluestar range. So, I went out and got some #10 scallops and did some searing. Used max heat on the biggest burner, just to try it. Okay, it was a big mess because she only had olive oil (health nut) and her hood was not really adequate for the smoke generated by that oil. But the scallops were nicely browned on the top and bottom while all but raw at the center, which is just the way I want it.

My education in ranges continues.

Maybe I will have to travel everywhere with a scallop or a bite-sized bit of chicken, and a little vial of oil, in case I encounter an interesting range.

Reading through the posts above, I think something that no one has yet to mention is cooking technique.

Anytime you have any surface of the meat that's wet, it will not sear/brown properly. At least, not in the amount of time that you'd like. You could just place it there and basically dry the meat out. But you'll loose all the juices inside of the meat because you don't have a proper seal (done through searing).

The water on the surface of the meat would come to a boil immediately at 212F. At the same time, due to heat transfer and thermal equilibrium, the temperature of your pre-heated skillet will also drop drastically.

At this point, you're slowly bringing the temperature back up to sear (dry out) the surface of your meat. A higher BTU burner would basically bring the temperature up faster but still you won't get good results as when you practice proper searing technique.

Always pat dry with a paper towel, sprinkle/dust lightly with flour/cornstarch if needed to absorb the moisture on the surface and then sear with a very hot skillet. Use little oil and also use a high smoke point oil that's neutral in flavor.

Hopefully this helps!

p/s - I'm attending culinary school and proper technique is one of the things that they emphasize on.

Thank you. I, for one, would love to hear more tips and technique. Culinary school sounds very interesting. Do you like it? What is the best and worst thing about it?

I love it actually. Really learnt a lot of the fundamentals in cooking. You learn the theory and then you execute it in the kitchen. The best thing I'd say is that you get a lot of diversity and exposure. And the worst thing is probably that culinary school doesn't really fully prepare you for the actual kitchen. There's nothing like working in the industry and learning about it. Actually, I'm more of the proponent of the classical learning method which is practiced mainly overseas in Europe and such; which is through an apprenticeship.

BTW, I'm also have a degree in mechanical engineering. Working on a career change.

OK, well I have a few more tips that hopefully might help you. Putting out grease fires. Basically never use water. You can place a lid like the other person mentioned to basically suffocate the fire by removing the oxygen. Another method is to sprinkle flour, baking powder, baking soda. Basically that also works by suffocating the fire. ALWAYS remember to turn off the fire as well.

Generally, when you sear, saute, or pan-fry. You don't ever want to heat your oil till the point where it smokes. At this point your fat has basically broken down and begin to disintegrate. You'll impart unwanted flavors onto your food. Also, if you continue to heat it long enough, you'll reach the flash point of the oil and it will combust. Bear in mind that it varies for different types of oils. Some oils have flash points very close to the smoking point and some don't.

As far as technicality goes, searing basically has very little oil. Just about as much as sauteing goes. Searing however is not a cooking method in itself. It's just a step. Example, you sear a pot roast to seal the juices of the meat inside before braising it in the oven.

Pan-fry generally is 1/3 to 1/2 way of the item you're cooking in. Then finally there's deep fry.

Temperature is critical whenever you're frying anything. If the oil is too hot, your item will brown before the inside will have a chance to cook. If the oil is too cold, your item will basically soak up all the oil, and you end up with oily and soggy food. You also don't create a good seal on the surface and your juices will leak out.

Now as far as types of oils go, peanut oil is the best for deep frying, pan-frying, searing, saute-ing. It's basically an all-around, high smoke-point, neutral flavored oil.
Olive oil is not really the best type of oil to use for deep frying. Light pan-frying is OK. Sauteing is OK too. Olive oil is flavored and also have a lower smoking point.
Clarified butter is also OK for quick saute-ing (thin food items). Example veal scallopini (where you pound out the veal to thin pieces). If you're unaware of this, clarified is basically butter with the milk solids and whey removed. Heat up the butter gently over the flame. Do not stir it. The milk solids will be at the top, the clarified butter in the middle, and the bottom is whey and water. The milk solids will float to the top when the butter melts. Skim off the milk solids. You will have clarified butter in the middle. The stuff at the bottom is the whey and water. You get about 75% of clarified butter from butter.

OK, here's the heads up on BTU/hr ratings etc. There are a few things to keep in mind. Basically the burner element is a heat transfer device. Your pan contacts the burner and is also emitting heat into the environment. You're basically losing heat to the environment. Burner --> Pan --> Environment. The higher BTU/hr rating will allow you to heat the pan up faster and also accommodate for more heat loss.

So lets say you have a really thin pan which barely has any thermal mass. You'll have a hard time retaining a high temperature on the pan if your BTU/hr rating is low. Basically thicker pans have more thermal mass. With all other factors being equal, more thermal mass means more heat retained. Now, at the same time, more thermal mass also means it'll take longer to heat up. Also the type of metal comes into play. Copper vs Aluminum vs Stainless Steel. Different metals transfer heat at different rates. So now that you have your pan heated up and it's a good nice and high temperature that you desire. You place a cold piece of meat on it. There's something else that you would have to deal with which is heat recovery. Higher BTU/hr burners will allow you to recover the heat much faster. Also a good heavy gauge pan (like a copper lined pan) will also help because it would have a high thermal mass retaining a lot of the heat. Another factor with good quality pans (generally thicker pans), is that you get even and uniform heating throughout so that you won't have any hot spots.

Basically, it's not just one factor (i.e. BTU/hr rating), it's a combination of your pan, technique, etc. BTW, stir fry is done at a really high temperature. It's kind of a spin on sauteing except it's really quick and the temperature is really high. If you've seen it in a restaurant (mainly Chinese cooking I believe), you'll see the burner ring is huge and the wok is basically shaped to contact the flame all over. With the shape of the wok being concaved, I believe there's also a radiant heat effect at play as well concentrating the heat toward the center. I don't know of any residential setup which will allow you to "really cook" on a wok. If you have noticed, stir frys when done right has somewhat of a slight smoky flavor to them. It's hard to explain. It's not so much that it's burnt or like it's a BBQ. It's a distinct smokiness inherent in the high heat cooking.

Hopefully this helps =)

I think the OP was specifically concerned about stir frying so when we say "searing" we are talking about the first phase of the stir fry. In this case, patting dry would be difficult since the meat is usually cut in small pieces. In wok stir frying, patting meat dry is simply not a standard technique. With shrimp, scallops, and fish I do often pat dry before cooking since there's usually no marinade involved. With chicken, beef, and pork, the standard method is simply not to do an over wet marinade and if it is over wet, simply drain before cooking. Also, with stir frying, usually a bit more oil is used than saute. Any excess is typically drained off after browning the meat.

For wok cooking, intense heat in the center is ideal instead of even heat all around. Home burners are not built to provide the concentration or intensity found in restaurants but bluestar comes close enough to make it fun to cook on. Also, higher BTU/hr is a bit more important in wok cooking because fast changes in temp is often necessary. That's the reason I don't like cast iron woks. Standard hand hammered iron woks, don't store heat like cast iron so you have to depend on the power of the burner to provide continuous intense heat when it's on but cool down fast when off.

Thanks to both of you - I'm learning useful things here. I'll remember this as I'm sadly boiling my so-called stir fry tonight on my low BTU range :-)

We originally put a residential Wolf in our Kitchen but it did not have the heat we wanted to do a really good sear. After much discussion, including with a couple of chef friends, we ended up putting in a commercial Wolf. It is absolutely wonderful. If your friend had a commercial Wolf (and not one that just looks like it) you probably noticed that you have to have at least 6" space on the sides and heat resistant surfaces (usually tiles) on the sides of cabinets within 6" and back wall. Commercial ranges have no insulation. We'd already installed a 1200cfm hood system and 1200cfm make-up air system which were adequate but we did have to switch the gas line over to HP from low pressure and we had to install a couple of fire sprinklers in the hood. In the end it was all worth it, but if you're thinking about going commercial this is what's required.

Good Luck...

Yes, she has a older commercial Wolf. Her wall is tiled and she has enough space to the cabinet on one side and the refrigerator on the other side.

I am interested - did you use a standard commercial/restaurant vent hood system with makeup air and an standard restaurant automatic fire suppression system? Or did you find a different way to do it? I'd love any details you wanted to share. Thanks.

I'm curious as well as how you got it past inspection -- they changed the International Fuel Gas and NFPA Codes a half-dozen years ago to explicitly prohibit commercial-rated cooking equipment in any residence or any location where residential cooking is performed.