Expert: John Langenfelder - 3/19/2009

Question
I have a new 4 burner propane grill from sams club members mark.
When I light all 4 burners, the two center burners get hot, 500 + degrees, but the outer burners only get to 350.  I have done the reset the regulator thing multiple times two different ways after researching this for many days on line with no change.  If I light just the two left burners the far left will get to 500 degrees and when I light just the two right burners the far right will get to 500 degrees.  I therefore know that all four burners can get to 500 degrees, so its not the burners.
If I light either the two left or the two right burners and they get to 500 degrees, as soon as I light another burner the temp drops.
Hope you can help or point me to someone who can.  The reps for the company who manufacture the grill were worthless. They told me to turn all four burners on high and if the lid temperature reached 500 degrees it was fine !
Thanks
Mitch

Answer
Mitch,

I'm sorry, but I don't think that I'll be much help here.  I am thinking that it is just an air or gas flow problem. You might try playing with the air flow valve on the venturi tube to see if that helps.  I might tend to agree with the support guys, in that if the overall internal temp is 500 degrees you should be ok.  Bottom line is that you'll probably never cook anything at that temperature.  Usually you'll either be doing indirect cooking or short direct cooking but probably not that high and probably only with half the burners.  What happens if you adjust the burners down and have an internal at 350 degrees?  What is the temp of the burners then? I have never bothered to check the temp of individual burners. I just use a temp guage to make sure that I have a steady overall temp.