Gas barbecue burners orange/sooty

[stuartb3502]

I have a 4 burner gas BBQ which is in good condition, but has started acting up. Following removing the burners for a bit of a clean last year, it's not worked as well (possibly wasn't working well before, but has got worse). One burner is unusable as the gas is escaping at the inlet to the burner and burning near the valve. This is the burner furthest from the gas connection. Two other burners have very lazy orange flames (still some blue however). The first burner is blue with orange tips. It has a side burner (the type for a pan) and that also seems to be a lazy orange flame. Seems like overall pressure is an issue.

All burners appear to be in physically good condition (no heavy corrosion) and unblocked. The burners do not have adjustble collars/air valves. They are finned and just slot over the brass valve outlet. I'm sure they are installed correctly.

I have today replaced the regulator and hose "just in case", but I don't think it's much if any better. I'm using a 13kg Flogas butane bottle which still has plenty of gas, but is two years old. I tried "resetting" both old and new regulators by leaving disconnected, closing burner controls, opening bottle valve slowly. No difference.

Suggestions for what to try? thx

 

[conny]

Could be old grease/fat on the fin plates. Remove them and drop them in a bowl/bucket of scalding hot soapy water for a while and then give them a good clean with a scouring pad. I take it the burner tubes rum from front to back? you say you removed the burners for cleaning. Have you secured back into place correctly? Always worth a double check. Check the holes are not blocked with food/grease etc. You should have got a small length of stiff wire when you bought it. This is to clear out any blocked holes in the burner tubes. Pain in the backside to do this task but often works wonders. If you don't have the 'tool' a piece of wire or a pin will often suffice. If none of this solves the problem I suggest you have it looked at by a qualified repair shop.

 

[stuartb3502]

Thanks for the ideas. Front to back burners, yes.

It’s all clean on heat plates and the burner tubes with nothing blocking the actual burner tubes either. As far as I can tell the burner tubes are fitted ok. I can’t see how I could fit them wrong tbh. The open end goes over the valve outlet and the other end has a hole which drops over a pin at the far end and is then secured by a split pin so I know they are neither too far in or out from the valve outlet.

Thanks again for the ideas.

 

[badgerfoam]

I had this issue with a gas powered smoker, turns out that over winter spiders had created lots of webs in the burner pipe/s.
After clearing this out with a pipe cleaner and some compressed air it was back to blue flames.

 

[stuartb3502]

Thanks. They look clean looking through one set of holes to the next, but I'll give them another blast out in case.

Another thought was that if I have one valve which is leaking, it could cause regulator to reduce gas pressure. Not sure about that, but will need to dismantle case to check the fittings with some soapy water.