This may be a stupid question, but what are these things and how do they work?

http://www.weber.com/bbq/pub/shop/product/view.aspx?ProductID=1067

A series of v-shaped metal bars, either porcelain enamel-coated steel or stainless steel, that sit above the burners. They get very hot and when juices drip on them, some ignites to give you grilled flavor, but most of the drippings shed off, dropping past the burners into a catch tray that funnels into a drip pan. While not perfect, Flavorizer bars do a better job of preventing flare-ups than lava rock found in older grills, since there is no pooling of drippings.

Older grills had two sets of bars, one running from side to side, the other running front to back. In more recent models, Weber switched to just a single set of bars running in the same direction as the burners.

Regards,
Chris

Has anyone put the flavorizer bars in an other than weber gas grill.

I have obtained for free an older but in good shape gas grill. Charbroil brand. Have not tried it yet. Needs a little cleaning up and the burner is rusty but does not look rusted out anywhere.

quote:

Originally posted by RandyE:
Has anyone put the flavorizer bars in an other than weber gas grill.

I have obtained for free an older but in good shape gas grill. Charbroil brand. Have not tried it yet. Needs a little cleaning up and the burner is rusty but does not look rusted out anywhere.

Randy
Flavourizer bars are a Weber patented product. The Weber gassers are engineered to accept the flavourizer bars and their design takes into account: heat output, flame height, burner clearance, airflow characteristics, grill height etc.

Bottom line is whilst they may work, for safety reasons, without any engineering analysis I personally would not attempt to use them.

Regards

how do you know when they need replacing? Mine look terrible but I suppose they are doing their job still.

Mine rusted in half, and fell

Guess it was time to replace them.

quote:

Originally posted by Tom P.:
how do you know when they need replacing? Mine look terrible but I suppose they are doing their job still.

Tom

SS will need replacing when they sag noticibly in the middle and/or start getting holes in them or ar so coated with crud that the catch fire when you light the BBQ. (if they do heat them up for 20 minutes on high and then give them a good scrub with a stiff wire brush.

Porcilain Enamel - same as SS also when the start to rust significantly at the edges.

Both are generally only replaced when you have significant funds in your pocket to cover the costs.

Regards

I was in "pressure washer mode " a couple of weeks ago and decided to clean up my Genesis Silver B and WSM. I was amazed by the ammount of crud that had collected in the bottom of the grill. A lot of it seemed to be rust off the flavorizer bars. So I hit Amazon through this site and a week and about 36 bucks later I had a new set. Just put them in a couple of days ago. Very easy to do.