Q 220 - Cook Time With Disposible Cylinder?

Greetings!

I'm the happy new owner of a red-headed Q 220, my first-ever gas-powered grill. So far I've been using it on the stationary cart with a 20 lb propane cylinder, but was planning to take the grill on a beach weekend (well, the wife gets to go, too....), which got me starting to wonder. Understanding that actual time will vary with cooking settings and the like, what's sort of a ballpark figure for how long I'll be able to run the grill on a 14 oz propane cylinder?

I've seen Phil Hartcher (thanks for posting all the tips, btw, Phil!) post that he gets 36-40 hours of burner-time from a 20 lb cylinder. Scaling this it works out to about 1-1/2 hours for a 14 oz cylinder. Does this sound reasonable?

Thanks hugely!

ETee

Ed
A "Red Topped Q220" - I am so envious of you, We dont have them here in the land of Oz.
We do have 2Kg (4 Lb) and 4 1/2 Kg (10 lb) cylinders here with the same fittings as the 20 lb. I have a 4 1/2 Kg cylinder that I use when taking the Q220 away I get about 15 - 20 hours out of it. The reason for the wide band is that I will be dependant on what gas setting you are using and how long your preheat time is.
1 1/2 hours for a 1 Lb cylinder would probably be a little low it may be up at 1 3/4 to 2 hours. 1 1/2 would be a conservative figure to work on.
Are your 1 lb cylinders refillable?

Regards

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the information.

The 14.1 oz (400 gram in the rest of the world's language) cylinders are single-use disposable, which makes them one of the bigger wastes of steel I can think of. They're about 25 cm long without the threaded neck, and about 7.5 cm in diameter and are commonly used by plumbers for torch-soldering.


Sometime in the past, when I wasn't looking, Coleman started using a shorter, fatter 1 pound (465 gm) cylinder which is now pretty much the standard for camping gear. My guess is that the wider diameter cylinder made things like mantle lamps a lot more stable. I've seen some discussion on this board about whether the Coleman style cylinder will fit the Q 220's but haven't tried it myself.

It's funny but I didn't even know the red-topped Q-220's existed until after I had decided to buy a Q-220, went out web-surfing for prices, and found that I could get the red-topped unit from one vendor for at least $20 USD cheaper than anybody was selling the conventional grey-topped units. I really think they look a lot better than the ones with the grey lids.

After reading a number of your posts and links I'm inspired to try to do some indirect cooking. For us it was simple carne asada tonight, made special by salsa made from flame-roasted tomatoes, chiles, and onions.

Best, ETee

Ed
Send me your email address (mine is in my profile) and I will send you some recipes for the Q that I have developed.

I just put on a piece of pickled pork neck onto the Q that I am turnng into Q ham, a little smoke and some honey glazw at the end.

I did Gourmet Brinded Chicken on the performer for dinner, The Q ham is for lunches.

I know the 14 oz cylinder you are talking about now, It is the same type as I use on the performer, it lasts forever on it. We only use a 2 kg, 4 1/2 kg or 9 kg on the Q here. The Aussie variant is not set up for disposables, something to do with Australian Standards I think.

Regards

Ed-
Generally, I get about 3 cooks out of a 14 oz bottle, 4 if they're quick, so 1.5 hours seems right. Count me in as jealous of your red-top, they didn't have 'em last year when I was looking.

For the 16 oz bottles, remove the top screw from the bottle bracket and bend it up and out a bit. That way, the bottom is still supporting the bottle. Just remember to put the screw back into the plastic so you don't lose it.

The main benefit is the 16 oz bottles are usually cheaper, and are sold at more than hardware stores.

Hi Mikey,

Thanks for the info on 16 oz bottles, which I did note are slightly cheaper than the 14 oz bottles. As I'm in the middle of a couple of home remodeling projects I'm spending far too much time in the local Home Despot (don't even get me started on Lowes...), and consequently have easy access to the 14 ouncers for the time being, but it's useful to know if/when I run out during a road trip.

- Ed

kinda bringing this back up. i've got two short cooks under my belt with my "red" q220. used the thin, long blue $$$ disp unit. thats all i got. maybe a bit over an hour including the 10 min warm ups. this of course just won't do. so i gotta adapt the holder for the cheaper coleman style bottles. course not really mentioned is the hidden costs of a 10 lb tank and an adapter hose. so here is my big question, where does one find a 10 lb tank ? all i see are the normal 20 lb ones and a small 4.75 lb one. maybe i gotta get one of those refill adapter fittings. course all this adds up to another 75.00 or so . not so good. did i mention i really like the q220 ?

George, a couple of months ago one of the Home Depots in my area had propane cylinders in a bunch of different sizes: 5#, 10#, 20# and bigger. Haven't been there in a while though. What I noticed was that of the three smallest sizes, the 20 pounder was the cheapest one at $25 or $30. Economy of scale at work I guess.

JP

JP
It is the same here in the wonderful land of Oz.
I have a 4.5 Kg (10 lb) bottle that I use for portability, the hose and regulator that is supplied with the Oz model fits all sizes, obviously were are a lot better off in that regard. We don't use the small disposable bottles.

Regards

well, i just made a support for the coleman bottle out of copper strap. thats about 3/4 in wide and has a lot of holes. i marked the burner and control unit at rest. then i made a loop and another piece to hang it at a bit of an angle. adjusted it to lign up the marks. screwed it to a lip under the handle. now it looks good and supports the bottle perfectly. no more expensive bottles. now to find a hose cheap.