Chafing Fuel: Practical advice

Use the fuel/burner for the job. If your buffet is 4 hours, use a 4-hour burner; it is simply more economical. Relighting a partially used 6-hour wick-fuel burner is frustrating and unrewarding, especially if the K P has lost or thrown away the wick caps which would have kept the wicks moist from the last time. And, how much burn-time is left? 2 hours? 1½ hours? 2½ hours? Whatever, you are going to have to keep your eye on them because they are going to go out during service.

Fill the bain marie with warm or hot water from the kitchen hot water tap to start. Hot tap water at 55ºC takes a lot less time to achieve legal or required holding temperature than does cold water (a statement of the obvious, .... but one that escapes many a hot buffet operator or kitchen porter).

Do not overfill the bain marie. Even a full-sized (9 litres) chafing dish needs no more than 4 litres of warm/hot water in the bain marie for the entire service. You will not boil away 4 litres of water even in 6 hours, especially as the bain marie is not open and subject to much evaporation.

There is a physical difference between HOT STUFF 4-hour and 6-hour DEG wick fuels; the 4-hour burner is not as tall. In all other respects the two burners are identical. However, this does mean that the flame of the 4-hour product is lower than that of the 6-hour one and that the hot-spot is some 10mm further away from the base of the bain marie. If this causes you a problem, fear not; because we have adaptors available to raise the 4-hours burner the requsite amount. See photograph.