BTU business...

[takadi]

I feel somehow that the BTU unit of measurement is somewhat misleading. Or am I just imagining things? Do BTU's really measure how hot something is? Are there other variables involved like the amount of fuel, surface area, pressure, etc.? I see some 100,000 BTU burners out there costing 30 bucks while some 32,000 K burners costing over 100 bucks. It doesn't make sense...

[paulraphael]

I feel somehow that the BTU unit of measurement is somewhat misleading. Or am I just imagining things? Do BTU's really measure how hot something is? Are there other variables involved like the amount of fuel, surface area, pressure, etc.? I see some 100,000 BTU burners out there costing 30 bucks while some 32,000 K burners costing over 100 bucks. It doesn't make sense...

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A BTU is a unit of energy (although I think the way stove manufacturers use it, they really mean BTUs per hour, which is a unit of power ... basically how fast the burner will heat something, all else being equal).

There's a lot more than BTUs to a good burner. If all you cared about was power, you could pour some gasoline into a trash can and let 'er rip. (Make sure your marshmallows are on a long stick). A good burner will likely heat more evenly, give more precise control, go down to a much lower simmer, and have a flame pattern that more efficiently gets those BTUs into your cookware. And it might be easier to clean and less likely to break. As with most things, you pay for the details.

[Fat Guy]

Here's the thing: if everything else is equal, then BTU/hr ratings are a good measure of performance. For example, if you get one of those ranges with four burners, where one of the burners is 16,000 BTU/hr and the others are 10,000 BTU/hr, then the 16,000 burner is going to heat a pot of water significantly faster than the 10,000 burner. When you compare two different ranges, however, all things are not equal. The BTU/hr rating is only a very rough indication of what kind of practical power you're talking about. Everything from burner design to burner-grate material to calibration can make a huge difference in what you experience as a cook. The type of cooking you're doing can also make a difference.

[slkinsey]

The BTU (that's British Thermal Unit) can be described as the amount of thermal energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. When speaking of cookware, one should properly say BTUs per hour. So, for example, a 1 BTU stove burner would be putting out the amount of thermal energy required raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit every hour.

As Steven points out, it's a good measure of a stove burner's power, whereas temperature is not. For example, you may have an acetylene torch that burns at 1000F. That's a very high temperature. But it's also a small flame. It's not very many BTUs. If you're trying to boil 10 gallons of water, you're better off with a lower temperature burner but one that is much larger. What's the difference? The larger, lower temperature burner is pumping out way more BTUs than the smaller, higher temperature blowtorch.

Ultimately, there is only so high the temperature can be on a commercial or residential natural gas stove. It's unlikely that the burner temperature on a Viking stove is meaningfully higher than it is on my Crapmaster 9000 NYC apartment stove. The difference is that the Viking burner is pumping out a lot more thermal energy, aka BTUs.

[takadi]

Well one reason I was concerned was because I am looking for a nice, versatile, high pressure wok burner that is affordable. I've looked everywhere, and I actually went out and bought one, but I keep hearing that some burners don't actually put out that heat, some burners put out MORE heat than they advertise, etc. I don't know what to believe, and I feel ripped off.