Hot Spots/Temp Issues

I was gifted a Genesis 1000 series and I just finished refurbishing it. Burners looked in good condition (only light surface rust). I replaced the grates with SS rod type and the flavorizer bars. They are not Weber genuine but are SS and seem to fit the same as the original. Let me be clear that I have actually never grilled before - I'm new to the whole thing, so I don't know what is/isn't right!

That said, what I have noticed is that when I run the grill on "Medium" (all 3 burners) as it says on a pack of frozen burgers they much longer to cook to temp as the pack says. This is with about 20 minutes warm up (lid down) and cooking them 6min on each side, keeping the lid down the whole time. It ends up taking about an additional ~6-9 minutes.

One thing I noticed as well is there are definite "hot spots" as indicated by the bread test (this was 20 min preheat on Medium and then each slice sat on there for 3 minutes).

So I'm wondering if something is wrong and what I could possibly do to remedy the "hot spots"? Or is it just that maybe I need to run the grill hotter than I'd expect and just get to know the hot spots?



Thanks in advance for your advice!

I like your bread test. That's a new one me.
I will have to try this sometime. That would be a
great demo (when evenly cooked) to sell a grill.

Dave in KC said:

I like your bread test. That's a new one me.
I will have to try this sometime. That would be a
great demo (when evenly cooked) to sell a grill.

Click to expand...

Haha yes, I found it when Googling hotspots on grills. My wife looked at me funny when I dropped 2 loafs of the cheapest bread I could find into the cart!

Could you remove the grill grates and take a HD picture of the flavor bars. Then remove the flavor bars and take a HD picture of the Burners... with the gas off and then with the gas ON. Let us see the quality of the burn. Thank you.

Actually what you're seeing is about as near perfect as you're gonna get a grill to be. There are all kind of things that contribute to uneven temps. A slight wind current at just the right direction for example can send temps all over the map. There is no such thing as a "perfect" burn in a grill (gas or charcoal).
Also the grill needs to stabilize as well. A 10 minute on high pre heat is recommended and in my case if I am not going to be using high temps I let the grill stabilize for another 10 min or so at the temps I want. But your result is as good as you will ever see from a grill

Judging by the pic cited in this article it appears possible for better evenness http://virtualwebergasgrill.com/2017/03/toast-test-visualizing-your-grills-hot-spots/

If you can rely on these "zones" being consistent, I would think it would be desirable to have some hot spots for times when grilling various items.

I've had a lot of crappy grills that have legit hot spots. The old school genesis has no hot spots. As LMichaels said, wind and other factors can impact your local temps, enough for bread, but in my experience it's not likely that you have "real" hot spots. You will notice that the edges and the interior are different, and you will need to learn your grill and to grill, but as far as legit hot spots, the genesis only has them when they need repairs. A real hot spot (like I am trying to describe) would have a black piece of bread on your grill. You have a really even cooker there, so get some meats, cook them up and enjoy! Take some time and learn about your individual grill, sure, but from what you have shown, you have about as good a gas grill as you can get!

Slainte!

Tim

LMichaels said:

Actually what you're seeing is about as near perfect as you're gonna get a grill to be. There are all kind of things that contribute to uneven temps. A slight wind current at just the right direction for example can send temps all over the map. There is no such thing as a "perfect" burn in a grill (gas or charcoal).
Also the grill needs to stabilize as well. A 10 minute on high pre heat is recommended and in my case if I am not going to be using high temps I let the grill stabilize for another 10 min or so at the temps I want. But your result is as good as you will ever see from a grill

Click to expand...

I guess my issue is cook time. It seems like when comparing bread tests with others, their bread gets considerably more toasted in 3 minutes than what I'm seeing. So I'm just wondering if maybe the burners aren't hot enough at "Medium". The other odd thing about my grill is the panel marks don't seem to line up with the "Notch" in the valves. There's a physical notch at "medium low" on the markings, I'm not sure if the notch is supposed to be medium or low?

I will pull the bars and grates and photograph next time I have it up and running.

That's not bad. Looks like you need to turn up the front burner a hair more than the other two. As for cook time, the "medium" setting on your grill is just a reference point. On my Genesis, medium low is really medium for suggested cook times on food boxes. Maybe medium high on your grill will correspond to medium on the burger box?