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I am a chef over in Western Australia and love to cook outdoors in my spare time as we certainly have the weather for it. For Asian cooking (stir fried, in a wok) I'm looking for equipment, but there seems to be no proper market in this field for home use.

There are what is call the Rambo burners which seem excellent , but they do not have a proper housing kit for stylish outdoor entertainment.

Asian charcoal cookers look good but are not available for purchase here.

Is there a home outdoor cooking apparatus capable of high heat cooking (specifically for wok cooking) which is perfect for backyard entertaining??

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  • Alton Brown suggests a traditional american solution: a big fat GRILL.
    – rackandboneman
    Jul 21, 2017 at 13:29

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I don't know what's available in Australia, but in the US they market high-output outdoor burners for deep-frying turkeys. This one is marketed as 200,000 BTU, twice the output of the ones often used in Chinese restaurants. (This $1,000 restaurant wok is marketed as 90,000 BTU.)

Most outdoor turkey fryers are marketed as 60,000 BTU, which will probably work reasonably well. They are decidedly not to be used indoors; YouTube has many videos of people setting their houses on fire.

Getting one in Australia may be a challenge, but they're very common in the US, and many kitchen stores and (oddly) hardware stores. I imagine you could have one shipped, though I'd verify that your propane tanks are compatible.

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  • I'd bet they have something similar... we use ours for home brew so the op might consider seeing if there's a brewing store around.
    – Catija ♦
    Jul 21, 2017 at 19:19
  • Something like this. Not quite the same but definitely plenty of BTUs.
    – Catija ♦
    Jul 21, 2017 at 19:52
  • Lots of BTUs. It's rated for 150L (40 gallons) of beer. That's a whole lotta beer for home brewing.
    – Joshua Engel
    Jul 21, 2017 at 21:34
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I'm Australian as well and almost wondering if being a professional chef you're discounting some wok burners that have a lower heat output than professional units but work well for home cooking. I use the side burner on a gas BBQ and just checked and it's rated for 15,000 BTU. I use it along with a traditional Chinese wok that's made of fairly thin cast iron and get the following sort of results:

  • For shallow / deep frying I leave it turned up for a couple of minutes to warm the oil (which I guess in a professional environment isn't desirable) but after that leave it set at about 1/3 and it keeps the oil at around 180C.

  • For quickly searing I leave it on high temperature lightly oiled and after a few minutes add meat and while I've never measured the temperature I guess it's around 250C or more and it takes peanut oil past the smoke point.

If you're open to waiting a few minutes then apart from getting a gas BBQ with a side-burner there's also a lot of things available here quite cheaply like a Primus Wok Cooker - Double Burner. You could place that on top of one the modular cabinets made for outdoor cooking and put the gas bottle inside.

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