ottawa foodies

I am looking in to buying a new cooktop/range and would like some feedback as to what type of stove most people are using? advice on what to look for when shopping for a gas cooktop? What do you prefer? Opinions please.
Thanks

I have no experience with Gas ranges, so I can't contribute much on that topic, although the people I know who have them, love them.

I have a plain old electric range, "The Man" has a stainless steel Frigidaire electric range with the glass-ceramic cooktop. He really likes the look of the appliance (as do I) but it does require upkeep. He has to a bigger wipe down after every meal than I do with my plain old range, because the stainless shows fingerprints and the glass-ceramic top can be tough to clean if any food residue burns onto the elements. Also the glass-ceramic can scratch or chip very easily (it has). But overall, I do like it more than my boring old range with the coils (talk about cleaning woes - less cleaning daily, but a pain to clean overall - too many nooks & crannys).

DAY DREAMING - IF I was to get new appliances, I'd choose a stove much like his, except I think I would go for the slide-in model, or a cooktop with seperate wall oven.

Firstly, your choice of gas or electric may be determined for you, based upon whether you can install proper 'to the outside' ventilation or not. Also, there is comparing apples to apples. A normal electric, from a 'heating water' point of view cannot compare to a gas cooktop. The electric is essentially inferior. If however you are willing to consider electric induction cooktops, that is an apple-apple comparison with gas. (Note: 99% of flat, glass covered cooktop are NOT induction cooktops... so make sure you know the difference). So, if we are comparing Gas to Induction, here are some points
....................Gas.............Induction
Speed to heat.......FAST..............FAST
Simmer ability..BAD to EXCELLENT.....EXCELLENT
Cost to Run........CHEAP..........NOT AS CHEAP
Requires Venting....YES................NO
COST for cheap.....$500...............$1500
COST for good......$1300..............$1500
Safety..............fire?..........cool cooktop
Pots to use.........ANY..........ONLY MAGNETIC STEEL
Lights Cigars.......YES..............NO WAY

Sorry for all the periods.. but FF's web script eats the tabs and spaces I put in.
You can probably find on another thread, that I bought a DCS gas cooktop, and am (so far) very happy. Another user also has a kickbutt Thermador gas cooktop, but it's worth a mint!

After that, the most important thing is to make sure that the sizes/kinds of pots you want to use FIT on the cooktop. My old cooktop had elements so close together that if you put a big stock pot on one element, you could only put something TINY on the others. My new cooktop, in the same space has much more room between elements. So... bring your favourite pot (or 2) to the store, and make sure they fit, the way you want to use them.

To contend one of Pete's points... I think you'll find that an electric coil element is superior to a gas stove from a 'heating water' point of view. Aside from simmering, it is the only area where electric coils outperform gas. Even with 15,000 BTU burners our pasta water takes significantly longer to boil than our cheap electric stove did. That said, once the water has come to a boil, cooking pasta on gas is waaay easier because you control the boil instantaneously.

As an avid brewer I can assure you that electric is cheaper for heating water, even (especially?) in large amounts like 60 to 100 litres. My immersed heating coils are even cheaper still (quite a bit in fact), but there have been many an Engineer do the math and even an under-the-pot coil is cheaper than most propane and NG for heating water. (EDIT: for now at least :-))

Zymurgist - LOL, I have no idea what type of cooktop boils water faster because I use the "heating coil" method myself... although in my case it is an electric kettle. I just can't stand around waiting for water to boil in a pot. I wonder if anyone else uses this shortcut.

Ok.. a bit of right, a bit of wrong. From all the sources I can find (google) operating a gas cooktop is cheaper than electric. As for boiling faster, that one is a tossup. Zymurgist is totally correct that electric is usually faster (unless you have some kickass 50,000btu burner) to boil water in large amounts. But if you are boiling 1 litre of water (for example) I'll put my gas cooktop up against Zymurgist's electric any day (I'll even bet a Beau's Beer that I will win handily) My cost source is the US Department of Energy, using this link ( www.energyguide.com ) where it says "While a gas cooktop generally requires a greater initial investment, DOE estimates that a new gas cooktop costs $11 per year to operate. Compare this to $24 per year for electric, and you see that the purchase price is only part of the picture." I'd be interested to see Zymurgist engineer's number... From what I can tell, it seems to be pretty much a slam dunk that per BTU, gas is cheaper than electricity... and where the caveat enters the picture is how efficiently you can transfer that heat into the water. Submerged electric is obviously 100% transfer efficiency, and a big flame, 2 feet away from the pot is obviously much less than 100%. To compare withe the Sugar Shack thread, when I was at Wheelers, I noticed their big boiling aparatus (thousands of litres) was fired by gas.. and you'd think that if it was cheaper to use electric.. they would?

And as for simmering FreshFoodie, I also challenge you to compare electric with my DCS gas cooktop. Of course some cooktops are terrible at simmering, but not all. Mine, according to the literature, can 'melt chocolate on a dollar bill' without burning the paper. As for real world use, I have not yet been able to make use of my 'lowest' setting, as it just seems to be 'not enough heat'.

I'll search my gmail to see if I can find any of the calculations that were done. I think F&T is on the money though - quickest, cheapest way to boil a small amount of water will be with an electric kettle since it has immersed coils.

Wow, thanks for all of that. Have any of you been to see the Blue Star ranges? Industrial type (kind of like Wolf etc) but at less money... available in tons of colours if that is your thing (not mine really just interesting). I may check them out, as I understand it they have them at Brault Martineau in Gatineau. 21,000 BTU it says on the website for Blue Star.
Could anyone tell me the minimum BTU I should get in the burners? From what I gather the burners are each different BTU?
Thanks

I never worried about BTU ratings when I bought my stove - which is the cheapest Kenmore with convection. Works fine even when I have my giant canning cooker on there.

Foodntrave : I was faced with gas or electrtic when I remodeled my kitchen two summers ago.

Click this link to see how I went:
--->ottawafoodies.com <---

The most importnat thing on my new stove was the 'Low and Slow' feature.