Propane tank phenominon with a question..

[pit 4 brains]

I have my gosm next to my grill so I can hook either to the same tank, one at a time of course, without removing the tank from the grill... I had plenty of propane before I began the Easter smoke..

So I smoked a ham for 7-8 hours with my gosm at just below the MED setting. When the ham came to temp I lowered the smoker to LOW and foiled the meat to keep it at idle until time to serve. Well of course my mother-in-law can't eat ham

, it makes her bloat

, so I needed to switch the tank from the gosm and connect the Weber. I made the swap and fired up the grill. After about ten minutes, the grill temp was about 220 and the grates were less than hot for the settings and time gone by. The fire sounded like it was flickering as if the tank was running out of propane. I was in disbelief! I get feeling in my bones when I'm about to run out of propane. Well, no matter what I tried, I couldn't get the trusty grill up to temp. I ended up broiling the darn chicken in the oven after the biscuits came out.
I went today to refill the tanks and when I took that one off the grill, it sloshed around like it was a 1/4 full. I hooked it back up and lit the grill. It went to roaring and began to come to temp right away.
My question is; Does running propane at a low rate for a long time make it hard if not impossible to run a three burner grill right away with the same tank?

 

[got14u]

I would think the best one to answer that question might be "furluvofsmoke" if I remember right he spent a long time dealing with propane and natural gas...

 

[meateater]

I run into this all the time with propane forklifts, when you change tanks you want to open the valve as slow as possible and only open the valve 1/4 turn, that's all that's necessary. What happens is you create a vapor lock. Hope this helps.

 

[tjohnson]

My grill does the same thing too.....

I turn off the valve and unscrew the gas line. A rush of gas comes out, so I know the lines are charged with gas. Make sure all knobs on grill are off, reattach the gas hose and slowly open the OPD valve.

Don't know why, but it seems to work. May be the OPD Valve itself or "Vapor Lock" like Meateater suggests.

As-far-as the Mother-In-Law issue.......Dude, I would put Extra salt on my Mother In-Laws food just to watch her B-L-O-A-T!

Todd

 

[hoser]

I agree with meateater....there are so many safeties buiklt into the tanks now, that the valve will trip and only allow a very low flow. Have to turn it on very slowly.

 

[pit 4 brains]

Thanks for all the help.