If you were asked to guess which part of the gas grill is the most important, what would your answer be? Would it be the firebox, the grates, the burners? If you guessed the burners you would be correct.
Yes the burners on the propane grill in my opinion are the heart of the grill. If your burners are not working properly due to “rust out” or “burn out” or clogging, you will be receiving less than desirable results with your end product – your cooked food. The materials that your gas grill burners are made of will determine the life as well as the efficiency of your gas grill. Sure, cheaper materials mean a cheaper gas grill, but in the long run are you really saving any money?
Some of the cheapest (I mean least expensive) burners available are made from aluminized steel. They won’t cost you much but you’ll be replacing them before you know it. These burners will generally give you about three years of useful life – that is assuming you keep the grease from building up on them.
Grease build-up on gas grill burners are not good – especially on the least expensive burners. Grease build-up will accelerate the corrosion process and if you do not keep your burners clean, will result in significantly shortened burner life.
The most expensive or upper end burners are made of cast brass. You will have a hard time finding your run of the mill propane grill at the big box outlets selling gas grills with cast brass burners. That is something you may want to upgrade to later if you plan on living 100 years or more so lets move on.
If you consider yourself the average Joe six pack and are notPhenq into replacing your propane grill burners every 2 to 3 years or so, you might want to consider stainless steel gas grill burners. Although you might think that as the name implies, “stainless steel” is not impervious to rust or corrosion – it just happens at a much slower rate than aluminized steel.
Now stay with me. Just when you thought we might be done here, we will now find that not all stainless steel burners are created equal.
At the low end you have the sheet metal stainless steel burners. At the high end you have you cast stainless steel burners. The sheet metal stainless steel burners are warranted against “rust through.” The cast stainless steel burners are usually warranted against “rust through” as well as “burn through.” And if you plan on keeping your grill longer than 10 years, you will have plenty of time to Google the difference.
Keep in mind that you can significantly increase the life of any propane grill burner you install on your gas grill by keeping it free of grease. Happy grilling!