This was superb reportage, Buffalotina. I am sure it will prove helpful to folks looking to get a tamer simmer on the 22k burners. Thank you for posting your experiences.

I would like to add that in theory this should not diminish the full-on performance of the burner on high so you really aren't giving up anything in the way of performance by tweaking it for a better simmer. But if you see degradation I hope you will point it out.

Great summary...clipped and saved for the day my range is installed.

Tina: thanks for the follow up. I'm really glad that you did not break anything unintentionally. And of course mandy at bs was up to her usual high standards.

BS management, give that girl a raise!!! She is incredibly valuable to your company.

mojavean: Thanks for your encouragement. I am glad that at least this may serve some useful purpose after I was so upset with it all. As far as I can tell the high end is not at all affected by my simmer adjustment attempts, which is as it should be. When the main valve is all the way to low it is still possible to have a pretty huge flame if the simmer screw is backed out all the way - as I found out. However, I don't think turning the simmer down affects the high end because I think the high end is probably limited by the orifice - no? At the low end I think the main valve is effectively completed shut and you are left just with a "simmer bleed" that can be very low, not at all, or pretty big, depending on the simmer screw setting. As far as I can tell from my experience that is how it works in practice at least - not saying that translates to the engineering end of things though. When I had the simmer screw too tightly closed down there was no flame at all on the burner. Plenty of clicking of course!

When I read your original post, I thought it would be difficult to strip that screw. The main things are that you need a very-skinny and long flat blade screwdriver and maybe some rubber gloves (to get the knob off). I have a jeweler's screwdriver and one other that will reach back in there to make the adjustment.

You have to hold onto the stem while adjusting to make sure it doesn't turn. I just use my hand, but I guess pliers with maybe covers for the jaws or a towel to protect the stem would also do the trick.

I found that my new (aftermarket) igniters helped with adjusting the low level on the burners. The bigger sensor surface of the Viking igniters seems more sensitive than the single-wire from BS.

I also had a little bit of a casting problem with 1 22k burner. The spot where the igniter sits had a little slop that kept the igniter from sitting as close to the burner holes as it should. I lived with it for years, but finally filed it off when I replaced the igniters. Now both of the big burners turn way down.

Thanks thull. Stooxie also pointed out the importance of holding the valve stem still....I THOUGHT I was doing it but evidently I was not.

Thull: thanks for posting. I knew there was a member who traded their ignitors out for viking, but was too lazy to search. I will probably do mine at some point as well. Probably when one breaks, but its been almost 4 years now and have yet to break one. I will dig up your post for reference when I do.

Another update: What Stooxie and thull said about not having the valve turning while you are doing this could be very important because I just went in again on my burners and one of the 22K definitely has the screw head stripped out. I think this may have occurred a while back when I was attempting adjustment but did not realize it was the main valve turning, NOT the simmer screw. Perhaps the screwdriver was digging into the screw head, rather than resting in the slot, I don't know. I have now successfully lowered my 15K simmer now too, but that screw was also hard to turn. That is it for my adjustments: I see no need to touch the simmer burner itself and the other 22K is stripped! However, I think I have plenty of low simmer "power" now.

I hope my experiences will be useful for anyone who may try this themselves. When my range was installed these adjustments were not made, hence my own attempts to adjust the burners.

@mojavean I realize this is a very old thread, but I was hoping you could elaborate why you say that adjusting the simmer won't adjust the high setting for the burner. The BS manual says just the opposite: "TIP: This adjustment will also adjust the burner’s high flame setting."

The low/simmer performance of the burners is very important to me. It sounds like I can adjust them down to where I want them to be, but I'm concerned about losing high-heat performance.

I haven’t looked closely lately, but I think the valve has two ranges of adjustment. when you get near low, it’s engaging a different adjustment to the gas flow. So, I don’t think adjusting the low flame affects the high flame much as a result. Even if it does, percentage-wise it shouldn’t be that much.

@thull Your statement about it not affecting the high flame is consistent with what others have posted here...but as I noted, is not what BS says in the manual. I sent them an email some time ago and haven't heard back (not a good sign about their customer service). I'm going to have to call them to see what they say.

Our burners are great on high. Unless they’ve changed radically in 15 years, I’d think you’d see similar. Not much else I can tell you except maybe to take a deep breath on the analysis paralysis.

I pulled a knob off and you can’t see what I’m talking about from the front, but that’s what I remember from having it apart and what I feel when turning down the burners.

Hmmm, I'd really like to turn down the simmer on our 2020 RCS 6-burner, but when I pull the knobs off I see a plastic cover piece stuck over the brass pole... and it doesn't want to come off, I'm afraid of breaking things if I pry too hard trying to get it off - is this normal? Should I just keep prying at the plastic until it comes free? It seems almost like it's been glued on.