goncalo's pic of the welding got me thinking that further detail may help understanding better.

i see 3 stages of cooking a curry: oil, spice and evap. the end point of oil and spice stages taste exactly the same for me on my domestic hob and the high heat stove ie no high heat is needed in fact it's very easy to burn things during this part of the cooking.

the high heat for me is in the 3rd stage of evaporation. there are the 2 tastes that can be produced: a plain hot fry or the smokey hot fry.

i've never really been able to work out the why (it works). i think it is something to do with the internal surface temperature of the pan particularly around the rim. theory says that with so much water "thin base" about the contents of the pan can never exceed 100C (because the water is being converted into steam and all the heat is consumed doing this). gut feeling says that the surface temp on the high high is a lot higher than 100C - it's hot enough to combust oil whatever that value is. this very high temp changes the taste somehow of the water/oil/onion combination. i don't think the spices have anything to do with the taste difference.

it's not just at home where i've experienced this difference. at my local TA you can tell when the chef is working and when his stand in is there - even in a BIR the difference is stark.

my pan base is 7.5 inch. i think if you had a 2.5" pan you could achieve the same effect on a domestic hob. a guess a teaspoon would be the equivalent of a chef spoon.

i will try and take some temp reading this weekend.

Quote from: JerryM on March 30, 2013, 09:05 AM


i googled propane gas flame temp and seems quite incredible at 2000C. 

Jogging my memory, that's at the tip and is also a maximum. The heat is then dissipated into what its heating ie the pan. Bearing in mind that aluminium has a melting point of 660

Quote from: Secret Santa on March 30, 2013, 11:21 AM

...... adiabatic .......

That's the word I was looking for.

Thanks for continuing the pursuit JerryM!

I have one question, how are you getting these measurements? If I can replicate them, I would like to give it a try.

Quote from: JerryM on March 31, 2013, 12:14 PM
it really is very typical of this forum - to focus in on what's not important.

stuff the temp of the flame.

Now, now Jerry. It was you who brought it up!  :

Quotefor those who don't believe in the high heat let's have your temp's on the table so to speak. I'm well happy to try out a lower rim temp.

No real need to do that Jerry. I can flame a pan on a 1kW burner by using a small pan and small quantities of liquid. I don't need to do that though because I have a 4.5kW burner and can flame any BIR style pan. And it makes no substantial difference to the taste.

I've stated before that if I cook in exactly the same manner as a BIR I rapidly attain an overly thick sauce. To counter this I either cook at a lower heat or, because I prefer to cook at full heat throughout, I usually water the base down to compensate.

I believe you are wrong in saying that a huge burner is required to achieve BIR and I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on that. What I will say though is that your adding of cold, unheated base to your pan makes a mockery of your claims for needing high heat. Or is it for exactly that reason that you need high heat.

I suppose, in conclusion, what I'm saying is that the BIR flavour has little to do with huge burner power levels. It's a combination of ingredients and techniques and the flaming of the pan or constant high heat is not, per se, the BIR secret.