What is BTU And How many BTU for Wok?

For any recipe, the taste largely depends on the cooking procedures and environment. Sometimes you may wonder, why even after following any recipe so strictly, the test is not same like restaurants. That’s where the BTU plays its role.

Professionals or restaurants generally use high BTU stoves for cooking. Like for stir fry its necessary to use a commercial burner to make the fry delicious like restaurants. So, as you can see, taste of food largely depends on the BTU of your stove.

But do you know, what BTU is? Or how many BTU for wok? In this article, we’re going to share the answers.

What is BTU?

In short. BTU or British Thermal Unit is a unit of measuring stoves output. BTU is simply another form of energy. 1 BTU is equal to 1055.06 Joule. So, maybe now, it seems a bit familiar, right?

By definition, 1 BTU is the energy that is required for increasing temperature of 1 lb. (pound) water by 1 degree Fahrenheit. For stoves, BTU indicates how much heat energy it can produce. Normally, high-end stoves are able to produce about 250,000 BTU.

The amount of BTU depends on the cooking environment and quantity of food. Like those stoves in restaurants won’t be suitable for home kitchen of course. Again, if you’re using a wok rather than normal pan, then a certain BTU will be good for it.

BTU is also a unit for Air conditioner. It is related to Ton that we used to measure AC’s cooling capability. So, you must not get confused by these two. Though both of them indicates power output of respected machine. But one is for heating output of stoves. Whereas, other one is for indicating cooling capacity.

How much BTU is needed for a wok?

Though household stoves come with a verity of power, but it may not be perfect for a wok. Generally, burners in most house are capable of producing approximately 500 to 12000 BTUs. For some dishes, it may be enough. But for professional cooking it’s not sufficient.

For many, 12,000 BTUs may look like a lot. But you may wonder knowing that, some Chinese cuisine needs about 2,50,000 BTUs for perfect cooking. It all depends on what dish you’re cooking.

Like 6,000 to 11,000 BTUs will be sufficient for very small quantity of stir frying. But you should remember that, when you add more food item, the heat will drop. And it’ll take a recovery time for the wok to allow you for perfect stir frying.

If you’re looking for restaurant like cooking, then you’ll need “High output burners”. They also come with “wok rings”. For an estimation, some suggest that, for a 350 gm of chicken, you’ll need nearly 15 to 18 BTUs.

Is 30000 BTU enough for wok?

As I’ve mentioned earlier, that completely depends on the recipe and cooking environment. Like if you’re cooking in a home kitchen, 30,000 BTUs or more can be dangerous sometimes. It can heat up your kitchen too fast. That much heat is not compulsory for soup or noodles cooking.

For a 4-stove gas burner, 15,000 BTU or a bit higher than this is enough. Experts say, Thai and Viet dishes don’t require high heat output from stove. On the other hand, Chinese cuisine needs high heat and BTU as well.

So, in short, first identify the purposes of your wok and then decide how much BTU is good for you. For outdoor, you can use a high output stove, with larger BTUs. But in home kitchen, fewer BTUs may serve better and safe at the same time.

Final words:

Various recipes need various BTUs to be cooked perfectly. In some Chinese restaurants, they use 2,50,000 BTU. On the other hand, in-home kitchen, generally we use a stove of 2000-6000 BTU. This one like a candle if the higher one is dragon.

But if you try to use the higher output stoves in kitchen, it may cause accident. So, this high output stoves need proper ventilation, bigger cooking space, etc. to function properly.

Again, if you try to cook professional recipes with a home stove, it won’t work that well. So, first check your kitchen or cooking environment, then select the recipes you want to cook. Then you certainly know, what BTU would be perfect for your wok.

Thanks for reading. Hope this article has met your demand.