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American Renaissance Grill Pro Burner Review

American Renaissance Grill Pro Burner

The American Renaissance Grill pro burner is an outdoor gas or propane burner that’s built to be the perfect addition to any outdoor kitchen.

Think of it as an oversized and powered up version of the gas burner from your range with all the bells and whistles. Let’s start with the product information.

American Renaissance Pro Burner Features

Feature

Measurement

Made of

304 Stainless Steel

Power (cooking BTU’s)

65,000 BTU’s

Inner burner

20,000 BTU’s

Outer burner

45,000 BTU’s

Dimensions

14" wide X 18 5/8" deep X 9 1/4" high

Burner Composition

solid brass

Features

Removable Wok ring, Stainless steel burner cover with handle

LED Light Color

Blue

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Assembly

There’s really no assembly with this unit. It comes packaged really well on a pallet, and it’s as simple as removing the styrofoam and cardboard, then peeling the pvc protective liner off the stainless steel surfaces. Peeling off the protective layer isn’t difficult, and if you have a kid or two wandering around, ours found it quite a bit of fun.

Why Use a Power Burner?

Does everyone need a power burner in their outdoor kitchen environment? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say yes.

It’s not just that you can use a wok outdoors where it won’t set off the smoke alarm. The reason I’m so adamant about this is because there are so many times I’m cooking something using a gas burner, and I wish I had more horsepower.

I love my gas range burners, but they take so much longer than electric burners to get a pot up to a boil. Cooking a pound or two of pasta or doing a crab boil both take so much longer than I’d like on my gas kitchen cooktop, and I love having a pro burner that allows me to cut that time down considerably.

When I’m outside grilling or smoking the main entree, having a burner allows me to make easy work of the sauce or side dish to accompany the meal. It seems like whenever we have the grill going, we’re also cooking something on the burner. They just go together in the way that we cook.

The first thing that we did on the burner was seasoning our new carbon steel wok. These woks come with a healthy dose of manufacturing oils and other things we don’t want on our food, so the first task with any new carbon steel wok is to bathe it in the hottest fire you can find. We fired up the burner and set the new wok over the flame, and I couldn’t believe all of the smoke that came off the wok from all of the oils burning off. If you buy a new wok, for the love of everything please burn it off before you cook with it.

After rolling the wok around to make sure that every side and corner of the wok was seasoned, we washed it thoroughly and prepped for our first dish on the new burner.

I had some leftover rice from a red beans and rice dish we made the other day, and for lunch we fired up the burner to make some fried rice in the new wok.

The power of the pro burner is amazing. 65,000 BTU’s of heat really gets things going in a flash, and it feels like I’m cooking on a wok with the power you’d find on the line in our favorite Chinese take out restaurant.

For dinner, it was grilled beef TriTip roast and mashed potatoes, and we used the pro burner to get the potatoes up to a boil. Even though the ground is covered with snow and it’s a high in the mid-20s, the pot of water was much faster to heat up when compared to our kitchen gas range. It’s like this burner was made to bring the heat as fast as possible when called upon.

Later that same week, we put on a pot of Pork Chili Verde for dinner and let that cook outside so the house would smell so strongly for the rest of the day.

We’ve only scratched the surface of what can be done with a pro burner with such power in our outdoor kitchen, but we’re really glad that we made space for this unit in our final setup. 

Use code: BBQLAB to receive a special gift with your order from RCS Gas Grills!

Storage

The American Renaissance Grill Pro Burner comes with a removable stainless steel cover/lid to protect the burners from critters and the elements. It’s a rather heavy lid, so it’s not going to blow off in even the highest wind gusts that we’ll experience here in the Midwest US. There’s also an optional vinyl cover with a flannel interior so the stainless surface won’t scratch. 

Warranty

All ARG cooking appliances come with a lifetime warranty, and you can learn more about it by visiting the RCS website.

What We Loved

Power like no other- It’s hard to compare this burner to anything that I’ve ever had available in a standard kitchen. I’ve had electric and gas ranges, and both kinds of cooking tops at my disposal in previous homes, and none of them had anything like this burner. Our current range has a large burner for getting pots of water to a boil, but it might equal just the inner burner power of the ARG pro burner that we’re reviewing here. When you kick on that outer ring, the power of the flame is just tremendous.

Stainless steel lid- We also really love the stainless steel top that comes standard with this unit. I wasn’t going to like the idea of leaving the burners themselves out in the open where spiders could nest inside or water could get inside and freeze during the winter months. The lid is heavy and stays in place unless we move it, so I feel that the burner is secure once I’m finished cooking and put the lid on before leaving it. 

Lifetime warranty- The lifetime warranty on all parts is another feature that we loved. It shows us that RCS stands behind their products, and we don’t worry about parts being out of stock or discontinued with this burner. It’s peace of mind that makes it easy to decide that this was the right unit to build into our outdoor kitchen.

Made in the U.S.A.- Need I say more? We're always glad when we can support a product made right here in the US.

Knob lights- Do we really need knobs that light up? Well, no probably not. But is it super cool and flashy to have knobs that light up blue? Absolutely.

Available liner - If you’re looking to install this power burner in an outdoor kitchen, we suggest that you give the available liner consideration. The use of the liner made installation incredibly easy. We built the countertop support so that it had additional supports for the burner. We supported the bottom of the liner with a couple metal studs running across the width of the burner that tied into the metal stud walls on each side. This allowed us to put the liner and the power burner in place before we had manufactured our concrete countertops. Winter snuck up on us and halted our outdoor kitchen construction, so we were glad that we were still able to use our gas appliances in the meantime. It should be noted also that the liner is a requirement if your outdoor kitchen will be made of combustible materials (wood).

(Left) Liner for American Renaissance Gas Grill, (middle) liner for American Renaissance Grill Pro Burner, (right) space to be filled by the 30" LeGriddle.

Opportunities for Improvement

Rubber feet on the lid- There’s only one thing that I can think of that’s happened with this burner that I needed to contact customer support for, and that’s when one of the little rubber feet came up missing on the lid. There are little rubber feet on all of the sides of the lid, so when you go to set it down you’re not setting stainless steel directly on whatever surface you’re using. It’s a nice touch to have these rubber feet to cushion the heavy lid, but one of ours fell off at some point in using it, and we just needed to contact customer service to get a replacement.

Tips

Get a wok- If you’re considering this unit, make sure you pick up a carbon steel wok to go with it. I can’t tell you how much fun we’ve had pulling out the wok ring and using a rounded bottom wok. We’ve used a flat bottom wok in our indoor kitchen for many years, and cooking with the curved bottom changes the way that we use a wok in our everyday cooking. With the curved bottom, we find that it’s easier to stir-fry and use the chan to keep the food moving during a cook. There’s also less food debris leftover following a cook, so it’s easier to clean up and get back to the next dish. We love our round bottom wok, and this burner makes it possible for us to use this pan in our outdoor kitchen.

Lid storage- When you take off the lid to use the pro burner, make sure you have a place where you can set it that’s out of the way. We’ve mentioned that the lid is large, but it takes up a large portion of countertop when we’re cooking, and we’ve needed to find a place to store it when entertaining that doesn’t take up 2 ft. of countertop that we use for guests. 

Know when to use one or both burners- If you’re looking to saute using this burner, don’t feel like you have to continue using both burners after your pan is heated up. You can get your pan hot so fast that it’s easy to burn food in the pan without much notice. This is especially true when you’re adding something like chopped garlic to the pan, which can easily burn if the heat is too high. Just because you can use both burners doesn’t mean you have to, and it’s a good tip when you’re looking for more control and less horsepower. 

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a burner that has the power to do anything that your culinary mind can imagine, you’re in the right place. With the 304 stainless build quality and a lifetime warranty, it’s hard to go wrong with the ARG pro burner. We’ve found that it has all the power that we need and more to bring our outdoor cooking to life, and it’s been a perfect complement to our ARG 36” gas grill and 30” Le Griddle flat top. 

Use code: BBQLAB to receive a special gift with your order from RCS Gas Grills!

By David Gafford

David Gafford is the founder of The Barbecue Lab, a YouTube channel and website focused mainly on reviewing outdoor cooking and outdoor living gear. David puts his analytical and teaching skills to work, helping viewers make fully educated decisions on the equipment they purchase for their patios.

But helping people get geared up in the backyard is only part of his passion. David’s real mission is to equip 500,000 people to gather their tribe and experience community by creating unforgettable experiences around food and fire.

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