New stove needed--any recs?

I thought I"d like an electric stove, but after reading all the negative comments all over the web about glass cooktops --how hard they are to clean, how they crack easily, how they stain, etc., I've decided to look into gas again. Have any of you purchased new stoves recently? Are they any of you out there who just love the range you have? How about the duel fuel models? Any info will be a great help! Thanks.

How about the duel fuel models?

Hi,

I don't have a stove, I presently have a GE 5-burner gas cooktop and a KitchenAid electric double oven. Until 2-3 years ago, I had Corning glass cooktop for over 25 years.

In my 25 years of Corning glass cooktop experience, I replaced the glass once. My family is rough on stuff and enough things dropped on it over the years that maybe it should have broken more often. What I liked about the model I had, there wasn't this ambiguous 1-10 dial, but specific temperatures from 100-500 degrees (roughly). How well this worked, I'm not really sure, but it met my psychological needs for precision. Cleaning spills which were caked on was just slipping a single edge razor underneath and pulled up easily. I also used the conditioning cream/cleanser designed for glass cooktops exclusively. Over the years, it did look a bit scratched up but it worked fine.

To cook effectively with glass top, you need smooth bottomed pans. When I first got the Corning, I had a full set of Copco enamel over iron cookware. We switched to Corning glass cookware. I still use the glass pots because I can casually monitor the progress, which I cannot in metal pots. Every once in a while, they break but I always find replacements at garage sales or go to the store. I was happy with the glass top until I started canning 10 years ago. The waterbath canning vessels have a deeply ridged bottoms. I am trying to heat a large caldron of water which including 7 quarts of whatever-I-was-making --- it took forever to bring this to a rolling boil. Forever. I acknowledge, my demands are not everyone's elses.

I bought my gas cooktop at Plass's outlet store in the western suburbs, which has returned items as well as stuff pulled from their displays. I paid $300 for a gas cooktop which otherwise costs $700. There may have been a scratch somewhere but there would be one irregardless eventually anyway. I received full warranty and manuals, which is what I want, and took it home in my trunk without any packing material. If I wanted it packed, then I had the $700 price point option ... ok, packing material doesn't mean beans! Sears has a similar appliance outlet store, I think in Melrose Park, so you can get major appliance deals.

The real cost of my gas cooktop was getting a gas line extended out to the kitchen. I live in an antique house, so gas lines, wiring and plumbing take interesting detours; with lots of hidden surprises. I had three different gas line installers come for bids, I had 2 no bids and a 3rd who suggested $300 (his occupation was gas lines to outdoor grills). When I phoned to accept his bid, he jumped it up to $500! My Dad blew his top and proceeded to install the gas line himself. Where everyone would have done a Chevy-job, I have the Rolls Royce of gas lines with multiple shut offs and location flexibility whenever my kitchen gets an overhaul.

If it were me-myself-and-I, and money was not a consideration, I would buy the duel fuel store: gas cooktop and electric oven. It took me about a week to get used to my gas stove and I love it, sorry I didn't exchange my Corning earlier. Electric cooktops are slow to heat up and slow to quench the heat, though you can just move the pot to another burner. For clean-up ease, glass cooktops win period. (Only negative with my gas has been the clean-up)

I have had one glaring negative experience with gas ovens: my friends were cooking a goose and a bit of the grease tipped into the pilot light/fire and caused a flame to shoot 5 feet in the air. I was sitting at the kitchen table, my friend and her mother-in-law had no eyebrows and singed hair ... ok an extreme example but one I would rather not repeat.

In any case, all my appliance purchases, big and small, begin with a trip to the library to read Consumer Reports. It provides me useful information to consider while marching through the stores. I try to buy their top of the line or best-buy recommendations ... but they offer enough information where I can balance in my mind how to proceed.

Good luck and do advise what you ultimately do.

Oh I almost forgot, there is an appliance forum where the people are as passionate, or nutty, about the details as we are about food. I have used this forum to ask questions periodically. Check it out!

Are you looking for a commercial-style range, or just a standard 'household' thing?

For gas of either type, I'd highly recommend sealed burners. Makes things much easier to clean, as gunk can't fall below the cooktop. Sealed burners have one problem, though, in that not as much air can get to the burners when you put a wok ring over them -- I've actually had flameouts (this only happens on models where the wok ring fits over the entire burner -- on many models, especially the commerical ones, a wok ring will only sit above the large grates).

We'd had no problems with our GE unit which is gas stove and oven. Note that there are some brands which make electric ovens and gas cooktops.

I echo Cathy2's urging toward a gas range. No warm up times, [probably] higher heat level, and ability to quickly adjust heat level are all far superior. I can see that electric ovens are superior [easily see how they'd have more even temperatures], but I can't say that I've found cooking in a gas oven a huge liability.

If you have generous funds, by all means get a dual energy stove. With the help of Consumer Reports ratings and a tired looking Abt appliance salesman, I bought a GE range several years back that I'm happy with. It has different sized gas elements [two standard, one higher BTU and one low BTU burner... the biggest burner still doesn't come up to a good stir-fry level, but it was worth getting], sealed burners [also well worth getting], and the broiler element is in the stove so that you can adjust the distance of the food from the flame. I got a good deal on a floor model that was in very good condition except for some sticky stuff on the side that came off in 2 minutes with WD40.

One important thing - I'd check Consumer Reports for current evaluations. My mom has a GE range made about 3 years previous to mine and it's a piece of junk. Consumer Reports is not infallible, but it is usually good at warning you off of shoddy goods.

Giovanna

The current issue of Consumer Reports (it must be the August issue because it arrived a few days ago) is all about kitchens, including reviews of ranges and ovens.

I can't recall if this issue has it but CR, in addition to rating cooking ease, controls, etc., also reports on reliability based on surveys of their large readership. As I recall, Sears, Whirlpool and Hotpoint tended to do well. Among the worst were expensive brands such as Viking.

Also, I agree with the general sentiment favoring gas ranges. We did have a flat glass range once and my wife (principal chef in our household) did not care for it.

The slow warm-up and cool-down were part of it, especially the latter, as our son was quite young then. Once he distracted her which resulted in an aluminum pot melting down. We always had to watch closely to keep him away from the stove until it was fully cooled off.

I would definitely say avoid glass cooktops if you have small children.

Just a note that Consumer Reports ratings are available on-line at http://www.consumerreports.org. You can pay $4.95 for just a month if you don't think you'll return to the site regularly.
We just bought all new appliances for our kitchen remodeling--literally weeks before the new CR issue arrived at the house. They're sitting on the front porch as I speak. But this new issue is really mostly a summary of prior ratings when it comes to appliances (though it has new ratings of cabinets which I wish I'd had a month ago). The good news is that a lot of formerly high-end features, like high and low temperature burners and stainless finishes, are now available at more modest prices.
We loved the look of the Amana gas range with the convection oven, but ultimately were persuaded by the CR ratings--especially the frequency of repair ratings--to buy the GE profile. It looks fine on the porch. Can't tell you anything about how it cooks.

I recently saw a demonstration of the new GE Trivection oven, and it seemed really impressive. It combines conventional, convection and microwave cooking. This speeds up cooking times while achieving remarkably even cooking.

I did not have any opportunity to cook with the oven myself, but I did watch several dishes being prepared in it and saw how they came out. GE has dealt with the problems of switching to unfamiliar cooking technology by programming the stove to accept conventional cooking times and then proposing alternatives. So if you're baking a cake, say, that would normally take 48 minutes, it tells you that if you turn on the convection feature, it can do it in 26 minutes.

You can use regular pans and if you prefer, cook conventionally. It doesn't double as a microwave oven, though -- the microwave function is just an assist. (GE does have a halogen/microwave called Advantium, that can work as a microwave only.)

Unfortunately, it's only available as an oven, not as a range. However they do have a slide-in model that you can pair with a cooktop.

As others have remarked, the electric oven with gas burners is the best way to go, whether you get a dual-fuel range or separate pieces.

I got my new range today. Thank you all for your comments and advice. I ended up getting a Kenmore-of course it's not made by SEars. I loved all the features, stainless steel, sealed burners, two very powerful high burners and a special really low simmer burner. I think I got the best of both worlds when it came to ovens, since this model has a gas and electric oven. Haven't cooked on it yet, but looks great and seems like it will work just fine. Once again, thanks for all your input, it helped me make up my mind!

I loved all the features, stainless steel, sealed burners, two very powerful high burners and a special really low simmer burner. I think I got the best of both worlds when it came to ovens, since this model has a gas and electric oven.

Glad we could help.

For a really low simmer, there are metal diffusers (round flat metal disk with a handle)you can purchase at a hardware or kitchen store. If you use the diffuser, then any burner can made suitable for simmering.

Thanks Cathy, I wanted to tell you how good the appliance forum was that you sent me. I'll use it for other appliances I may need. I do have a diffuser, have had it for years, but on my old gas range, the flame was either so low that it went out or even with the diffuser things would scorch. I do cook a lot, so I really think the new simmer burner will help a lot.

Since my current dilemma is semi-related, I figured I'll give this ancient thread a bump.

The new pad in Baltimore, with which we're quite enamored, has one massive, glaring drawback. No gas in the kitchen, and an ancient Whirlpool coil range that's seen much better days. The dilemma is that while I've gotten the landlord to agree to go half and half with me on a new range, I'm trying to decide whether it's worth it for two years worth of rental. I've been combing the net looking for info (including that appliance forum... thanks, Cathy!), but I was hoping somebody here might have some firsthand experience that would apply to my specific questions:

1) While I can find all kinds of specs on wattage, there doesn't seem to be any kind of information on the burners' responsiveness (heat-up / cool-down). Does anybody have experience with different electric ranges? Is there enough of a difference from range to range that this is worth trying to track down?

2) As a workaround to the responsiveness issue, I was thinking I could just get one of the flattop ranges and use it like a big French burner, adjusting heat by adjusting the pan's position over the burner. Anybody tried this? Does it work?

Thanks!

Dom --

My mother purchased one of kitchenaid's electric cooktops last year as she has no gas at her place, and it would cost about 10K to run a line to the house.

I have used it and found it to be very responsive - surprisingly so. I did try what you suggested - treating the stove like a flattop and moving pans around - it does work.

I wouldn't necessarily purchase it for your rental - the cost is rather high and in the end I don't know if it makes enough of a difference from more conventional coils and less expensive cooktops.

The house I purchased last year came with a GE electric range with glass smoothtop burners.

Compared to the coil electric stove I grew up with, these burners are way more responsive. I'm actually impressed with their responsiveness although I've been known to move pots around from burner to burner if I'm making something really temperature fussy. In that regard, it works fine as well. My only real complaint is that it has taken me some time, all through trial and error, to figure out what the 1-10 settings on the dials mean.

Does it perform as well as gas? No. But, in my experience, it is much better than the coil version.

My mom has a new fangled electric range (GE) and I was very surprised at how responsive it actually is. Still, I don't really like it, but it does beat the heck out of the older electric models. One major problem is that the controls are confusing, I am always adjusting the wrong one, but I suppose that just takes some getting used to. I also tend to misjudge the proper heat level. Again, that probably gets better with practice. It is also easy to forget that the surface stays hot after the burner is turned off (even though there are warning lights).

One nice feature is that two of the burners have an inner and outer ring that can be turned on separately to accomodate larger pans. It is also fairly easy to clean, and I have not noticed any problem with staining, even with burned on food.

If she can afford it, induction cooktops hat up even faster than gas and respond instantly to adjustments in temperature. They are really quite amazing, but they are not cheap - $1500-2000 and up.

Awesome! Thanks, folks. Good to hear there's some room for improvement. As mentioned, we're going split cost, so for $15/month over the course of the rental, I could get a $700 stove. Worth every penny, I think.

I put in a GE flat top range in my last condo and generally, I really liked it. I found it responsive, heated up well and I also used to move pots partially on the burners to get more precise heat control. What I did not like was boilovers or spatters on the burners baking in and the hassle of cleaning them.

Just thought I'd bump this thread to report back and say thanks. I've been using the GE JBP70WKWW for a few weeks now, and you're absolutely right, it's MUCH more responsive than I expected, even having been told that it would be much more responsive than I expected. I miss the gas, but this stove will be a pleasure rather than a chore to use for the next couple of years.