A couple years back, I noticed a marked decrease in even cooking temps
and even the highest heat on my 3-burner outdoor grill. It's from Sam's
Club and is sold under many names at places like Sears etc. My guess is
that some Chinese factory cranks them out and the merchants just slap
labels on them when they get here. Mine's a Member's Mark, but Costco
and Sears both sell similar ones.

It's well made with SS grates and ceramic flame tamers that actually
work. The three burners are 8-shaped and of cast iron. My first
inspection of them, when assembling years ago, showed them to be of
marginal quality castings with lots of residual sand. Two years ago, I
removed them, drilled the holes out uniformly to clear them of crud,
then reassembled the grill and things worked like new. However, the
cast iron burners continued to deteriorate- probably from drippings
containing salt from seasoned meat. Eventually, the side literally fell
out of one, so it was time for new burners.

I went to >
http://www.appliancefactoryparts.com...k-y0660ng.html
and located a blow-up of my very grill. As you can see, the replacement
cast iron burners are not cheap, but make a rebuild worthwhile compared
to a new grill. Then, I noticed the optional cast Stainless Steel
burners. Gosh- the three burners alone cost half as much as my grill
did way back when, but I had to give it a try.

The burners arrived promptly and unpackaging them it was immediately
obvious that these were of high quality. They were perhaps lost wax
cast, since the openings were precise, smooth and all surfaces were
smooth. I spent all of about ten minutes tossing the old burners and
replacing them with the new cast SS ones.

As I gain experience cooking on them, I'll post about it, but the first
trial showed me I had the most even temps I've ever had on any grill-
anywhere. The old ones had yellow tinged flames, where these get more
airflow and the flame is blue all the way. I'm probably off, but I'd
guess that the heat, on high, is 30% or more hotter, also.

The reason I'm posting this is that if any of you have an old grill
that's starting to lose its cooking ability, consider getting a new
burner assembly and see if that can be a less expensive way to upgrade
an otherwise good grill.

--
Nonny
If you think health care is expensive now,
wait until you see what it costs when it's free!

- P.J. O'Rourke