Thunder Group IRFS003 5A Fast Stove, Copper Nozzle

The media could not be loaded.  You're probably an enthusiast of Asian food. You've been cooking it for years, chasing that elusive wok hei--maybe you've achieved it a couple of times, but you can't always replicate it. You've tried your gas stove on full blast. A wok ring. Flat-bottom woks, round bottom, different recipes and techniques.. where's that flavor? It's here. I waited years to buy this thing. $130 I thought, that's a lot of cash.. it takes up space, it has to be outside, etc etc. Don't be me. Buy this thing. You will not regret the purchase.Quick sidebar: I got the 5B stove (looks like most everyone else did too). I was confused about the two options for a bit. The 5A is a 91,200BTU stove with a different nozzle (says it's copper, looks kinda like brass in the pic), while the 5B stove is 76,800BTU and has a piece of heavy cast metal for the nozzle, same as the rest of the stove. Personally, the 5B gets plenty hot for my 14" carbon steel wok. If I had an 18+" cast iron wok, I could see needing the higher BTUs. That said, this stove will get your wok smoking hot in a matter of seconds.All in all, I was ready to cook in ten minutes from opening the box; it's plug-and-play basically. If you understand how fire works, you'll be able to tune the flame easily as well. The instructions that come with the stove are adequate for setup, if not you can google around and find tips for this sort of thing. Getting your pressure set (the blue valve) is important, and the instructions go over this I think. After that just play with air/fuel mix (it's the silver disc just proximal to the gas knobs) and you'll have a nice clean flame in no time.The quality of the stove is pretty solid. The pilot light feature is really nice. Instead of pulling the wok off the heat when you add ingredients at first etc, you just cut the main stove off and back on. Setup was a relative breeze. The valve doesn't screw onto US propane tanks very easily, and you'll have to really torque it on there to get the valve depressed, so I recommend buying a dedicated propane tank for it if you have a propane grill so that you don't have to switch often. It does in fact screw on, though.I recommend keeping the stove out of the weather if possible for you. I have been keeping it covered outside, and it's doing fine. I left it out once to cool and forgot and it rained, though, and the gas channel had water in it etc. I don't think it's really intended to be weather proof. You won't be able to cover it for a couple hours afterward due to heat retention, so keep that in mind. Ideally I'd keep it on a cart and roll it outside when it was ready to go. As others have said, I'd recommend cooking outside on this thing unless you really don't mind oil spray and smoke in the house.Results with this thing are amazing. Whereas normally you have to worry about overcrowding a pan, that issue is mostly nonexistent here. You can always bail yourself out with more heat. It's pretty incredible at full blast. Make sure you have a wet rag to grab your wok handle with, too, cause it's gonna get warm. Have every ingredient ready to roll, because cook time is next to nothing for most recipes. I've been cooking on this constantly. I am a fan of sichuan, so I've been doing a lot of work out of Fuchsia Dunlop's book and it's all turned out phenomenally.CLICK BUY!

I’m drinking this two stars for the regulator. I couldn’t get this thing to “plunge” the propane tank sufficiently to access the fuel. I kept trying. Then I tried something “out of the box”. I removed that rubber seal off the male-tip of the regulator. This allowed me to screw the fitting deep enough to push some valve in the propane tank to allow fuel to flow. (This is a safety device I think found in all propane tanks. You can’t open the valve anymore to empty a tank. A fitting needs to press into some valve.). Now without that rubber seal, you have to turn down fairly hard with your hands to seal the fitting. I needed leather gloves. My brother has an older turkey fryer burner with the same female-type fitting. His requires a wrench to tighten and his fitting is a brass fitting. His seals up solid every time. I also had to mess with the hose clamp fittings. I loosened the clamps and pressed harder on the hose to barbed-nipple. I had to channel inner strength. Got the worm-clamps tight, no more hissing sounds of escaping flammable gas. Phew!I am going to buy a replacement 30psi adjustable regulator. I want a more secure fit. One of the USA type female fittings you can take on and off repeatedly would be a MAJOR UPGRADE! Safety first and all.Now? I am a wok rookie. I used my new THUNDER to burn in a new wok. It was awesome and scary all at once. I have cooked two meals so far. I feel like I’m playing catch-up the entire time. Things happen very fast. I give my performance 2-stars. The stove itself was faultless. At first I wondered why they didn’t use a lever on the main fuel valve. You could throw the valve and go. Now, I think it would snap off with repeat setups. I won’t leave it out, but I’ll pull it in and out of storage as needed. Right now, it’s on overtime cuz who doesn’t like that new stove smell?With my future modification, my stove is gonna rock! And my house won’t smell like cooking oil and food. Win!EDIT: I AM UPDATING THIS AND ADDING ONE STAR! four stars now!since i bought this i am almost exclusively cooking outdoors. the regulator still kinda sucks. i take the unit in and out of my garage daily and that internal (female threaded) regulator is downright annoying. it is slow. i went to a local propane shop and the guy said it was decent quality. it is a typical home regulator found in Asian homes. he suggested keeping it until it became a problem. i reduced the PSI and i can actually get a decent simmer. i added a pressure gauge in-line between the tank and regulator and now i am FAST again. easy on and off. (pic below). the knob for the pilot light is hair trigger. you get the pilot light perfect; tiny and fuel efficient. the mere motion of removing your hand can bump it to super hot and huge!! if you go into your home to bring in your food, that pilot can get hot enough to burn on food to the wok. dial it back and keep it there.rust. the upper ring of my unit rusted. all surface rust, but rust nevertheless. i hit it with a wire brush and solvent and painted it black with high heat BBQ spray paint. i have not heated it up yet, i painted it yesterday.with my 14" home wok. the 30psi regulator is too much. mine is dialed back significantly. smaller woks require smaller wok fires. plain and simple.

Stove is catching fire. Asked seller for help figuring out how to fix this almost $500 with shipping piece of garbage and got this reply:" Sorry to hear the stove is falling apart after a few months of use. We as a seller do not cover end users. This stove is not cover under any warranty from manufacturer also. Sorry about this.Best,MV "