That's a sealed burner so you might be experiencing some heat loss up the sides. I took a look at some pictures and it appears that the flame is quite wide. The marketing material says it's designed for stir frying but I've found sealed burners don't provide focused heat that wok cooking really needs. How big is your wok? Most people have 12 or 14" woks. Take a look at the flame on high with the wok sitting in it's cooking position. Is the flame almost as wide or wider than the top rim of the wok? For best results, the burner should apply heat to the the center 6-8" diameter at most. Now a powerful flame will wrap around the bottom of the wok or a pan but many sealed burners has flames that come out more than 12" before even touching the bottom of the wok. It's this point of "first flame contact" that is important. That gives you a good indication of where most of the heat from that flame is going. Do you gallon of water test in the wok. I'll bet it take longer to boil than your test with the wok than with the pot. I'll also predict that the water will start bubbling around the edge with very few bubbles in the center of the wok. Let me draw an example here. If you take an 18k BTU/hr burner that has a 16" diameter flame pattern, that means your 18k BTU/hr is spread out across that surface. In best case scenario that heat is spread evenly but in most sealed burner that heat is actually concentrated in a ring around the edge, let's say a ring of 10" in diameter. The distance between the bottom of the wok and the flame at a diameter of 10" is probably at least 2-3" above the flame. Most of that heat will deflect off the side and be lost in the air, ultimately exhausted up the vent. Now let's say you have an open burner where the heat is evenly spread within the middle 8" under the wok. The center of the wok likely at least touching the top if not under the tip of the unimpeded flame so heat transfer is at maximum. Also, consider that the most of the 18kBTU/hr of heat is concentrated in a solid circle of flame rather than a ring. The proximity of the flame plus the concentrated nature of the flame makes the center of the wok very hot. Unless you are cooking for 10+ people, the amount of meat your trying to sear is probably going to fit in the center 4-6" of the wok. That means that with the wider flame pattern, most of the heat will not go to searing the meat. Now to my suggestions: 1. Test out the heat distribution and water boil time with a wok and a gallon of water. 2. If the test shows that highest heat is not at the center of the wok, then here are some thing to try. a. wok ring - I know, you've got a nice wok grate but it lets too much heat escape on the sides. A wok ring can actually concentrate more of the heat under the center of the wok. The bad thing is that it usually lifts the wok a bit which isn't so good. Give it a try, they're cheap so if it doesn't work, it's only a couple of bucks spent. b. Push the meat up the sides to sear. The burner on this unit seems to have a flame ring on the inside but the outside flame seems to contain the highest power flames. Push the meat up to that area. I cooked on a viking sealed burner for a number of years and found that the only way I could get a good sear is to push the meat up the sides of the wok. One technique that I used was to slant the wok one way such that the ring of flame intersected the center of the wok during the initial preheat. Once the wok and oil is smoking good, then straighten the wok and put the meat in. Remember to drain the meat very well. Wet meat doesn't sear unless you're on one of those 150kBTU jets. Once the meat is in, then rotate slide the wok around so that the meat is always contacting a freshly heated part of the wok. Alternately, work the meat up to the edges of the wok where it's most hot. Good luck.

Stainless steel scrubbies and dish soap. I was afraid to use them for fear of ruining the shiny finish. ButDishwasher the Glass enamel is impervious to scratching from the SST scrubbie. I have never managed to scratch it, but not for lack of leaning into it and scrubbing hard. Take 'em over to the sink. Lay a tea towel down and go to town on them. Toss the cast iron grates in the Dish washer. I was afraid they'd rust but they don't. Be careful handling them, they Break; the castings are real garbage. I broke my first set & had to replace 'em.

I'm not a plumber, so don't take anything I say as 100% accurate, just trying to point you in the right direction, also I am on natural gas. Yes the line from the LP tank needs to be buried. The good news is, I don't think you need to replace the underground gas line. My gas line, that brings the natural gas to my house, ending at my meter, and regulator is also 1/2" inside diameter, but that's high pressure, before the regulator. Of course once it gets to the regulator, it needs to be at least 3/4", maybe more depending on how long it is to your stove, and how many btus your furnace, water heater, clothes dryer uses. We didn't have a problem getting our Wolf past 400 when we first got it, and did the burn in, with the small pipes, our problem was trying to use the oven, and burners at the same time. The new pipes fixed our problem, but other people with the same problem have big enough pipes. Wish I had an answer for them.

His comment had to do with repairs. He said that If a Bluestar needs a repair, you can take it apart only a couple of times and that these flimsy clips (where they are I do not know) break easily. This may not be very helpful. He recommended Wolf mainly for their great customer service. He did say that the Bluestar was nice but he thought the Wolf was made better. I may see him again next week when he brings the part needed for my washing machine so I will ask him again. He did steer me away from Thermador due to their poor customer service. All of the models I mentioned in my first post are available locally, but I would have to take a drive to use any of them. We live in central VA so I would guess that the DC area would have a store with some live cooking available.