Gas or Electric Oven

Thought some of you chefs and cooking enthusiasts would be able to help me out with your thoughts.

We are redoing our kitchen and have got varying opinions on getting a gas or electric oven. We will get gas cooktop, but are poondering what to do with oven. The "dual fuel" ranges cost quite a bit more, so I wouldn't mind avoiding them if I can...but some tell me an electric oven is gives a more stable temperature. I have only had electric ovens...so I don't know who to believe.

Also...any thoughts on what brands of ranges are best woould be welcome as well.

I never thought I would spend more on a kitchen than I ever spent on a car. Life is funny.

Thanks in advance.

I just went through it ...

The best gas cooktop you can get (ideally, with a 24" flattop griddle.)

My restaurant range has 2 ovens, 6 burners (4 would have been okay) and only a 12" flattop griddle (and therefore a too-small salamander for browning.)

We just decided on a separate, wall-mounted electric oven (and a food warmer) ...

The restaurant ranges are super -- never had a bad meal -- but they are probably not going to be appreciated by the building inspector, and you'd want to avoid them if you have kids ... but, they don't clean up to a sparkle as the consumer versions that may be triple the price.

Meanwhile, I see some restaurant kitchens where the range/flattop look like new ... I have yet to find the perfect solvent/soup/degreaser to get mine back to showroom condition. Help from my pro-friends?

quote:

My restaurant range has 2 ovens, 6 burners (4 would have been okay) and only a 12" flattop griddle (and therefore a too-small salamander for browning.)

When you say "restaurant range" do you mean one you bought from a restaurant supply place, or one of those "commercial look" types that look like pro models, but have been tamed and toned down for home use?

What brand is yours?

My preference for home kitchen appliances is anything made by Viking. I would choose the gas oven, standard/convection combo. A little more expensive but definately worth it. It's restaurant quality built on a home scale. www.vikingrange.com

quote:

Originally posted by Tony Bad

quote:

My restaurant range has 2 ovens, 6 burners (4 would have been okay) and only a 12" flattop griddle (and therefore a too-small salamander for browning.)

When you say "restaurant range" do you mean one you bought from a restaurant supply place, or one of those "commercial look" types that look like pro models, but have been tamed and toned down for home use?

What brand is yours?

Restaurant supply store ... Imperial.

I have extensively cooked and baked with both, and I'll choose gas every time. Hell, I've even had a gas refrigerator. Nothing broils like a gas broiler, BTW.

I hear the electric excells for baking.

Thanks for all your thoughts...maybe I'll just go with one of these...

http://www.brick-ovens.com/

I've always used gas for both cooktop & oven. Electric is supposedly better (though I believe nearly all commercial ovens are gas), but I've had no issues.

My Viking range has been very good, though I'm a little annoyed at having had to replace the igniters for the oven burners every 3 years or so. Holds a temp very well, though one oven runs about 25 degrees hot & the other about 25 deg. cold. Convection feature is nice but only used occasionally.

If I were to do it over again, I'd probably lose the grill, which is a pain to clean and is thus rarely used, and replace it with more burners or maybe a second griddle. My $.02 is to get the biggest one you can fit it your space. Same for the fridge.

NB: Commercial stoves are great in a commercial setting but a bad idea for residential use. They generally have no insulation and need six inches of airspace around them. I believe most building codes prohibit them, if for no other reason than they use pilot lights, rather than electric ignition.

But they sure are fun to use if you've got the right pans and exhaust.

had a viking gas standalone in my last house. some general thoughts:

1. oven temp was a dream. and agree with enginecapt that the broiler is a thing of beauty. get an oven thermometer with whatever you get. all ovens fluctuate a little bit, but it's nice to know that 350 is really 350.

2. agree with rjb that the igniters were a pain, and needed replacing every once in a while.

3. simmering was unimpressive. this is what consumer reports always hit them on, and i'd have to agree.

We use L P Gas for our Heating, Hot Water, and the Kitchen range. It is super for the first two, but is a bit hard to use in the kitchen. The range is 'regulated' for L P so it is not a mechanical issue. It just is very difficult to keep the temps on the burners low enough to simmer anything. The Oven runs +25 degrees, but that may not be due to the type of fuel. We do love the heat of the Broiler !!
It is not enough of an issue for us to bother with the installation of an electric range, and Natural Gas is not available at our location.

For the oven I prefer electric, I've used both. Foor the cooktop, gas all the way.

MikeS.

As a kitchen designer I have had to help people with this decision thousands of times. I can only tell you what my preferences are from all those years of experience and thousands of kitchen designs. The whole kitchen business revolves around appliances and I always tell people they can not have a great kitchen without great appliances. Invest your money there first.

In the 50's when I started (yep 50 years at the same old stand) Thermodore introduced wall ovens and self cleaning --that made it possible for folks to have a self-cleaning electric wall oven that regulated temperature perfectly and have a gas cook top which was better for stove top cooking. They loved it !!!!!!

There were some people who wanted restaurant stoves like Viking and Garland, but as some other posters have cautioned, they were never meant to be in homes. So now the industry makes ranges that look like restaurant types and are fine in the home. Dual-energy units are now available because people still want self-cleaning and the right baking temperature.

My advise---Since cooking is the most important thing you do in the kitchen make it as comfortable and easy to clean as possible. The most comfortable is definetly the wall oven which eliminates bending, makes looking at dials easy and is by far the easiest to clean. They do not make self-cleaning gas ovens or built-in gas ovens. If you have natural gas (not propane, which is slower and does not get nearly as hot as natural) there are lots of good cooktops------but I suggest you look at the new electric units with black glass tops. They are much easier to clean (built in flush to the granite tops we use today) and the good ones have infinite control, automatic shut-offs and timed cooking which make them extremely a pleasure to cook with.

Built-in griddles and grills are fun to have, but take up room and are devils to clean. I prefer things I can put into a sink and scrub, or stick in the good old dishwasher and sterilize. Soooooo, a free standing griddle that is heated by sitting atop of two burners works for me and I do my grilling outdoors.

By the way as a second oven and fast cooking unit I like the GE Advantium. Replaces the microwave because it does the same job but it also bakes (cakes and pies) and old Frank Perdue's 6# Oven Stuffer Roaster comes out browned and cooked perfectly in less than 1/2 hour---you can't beat that with a stick. Happy cooking whatever you do.

We have a gas stove (cooktop and oven in one) powered by propane. We chose it because we wanted to be able to cook when the power goes off, as it does frequently out here in the sticks.

Boy, were we wrong. Not only does the darn thing lock up when the power goes off (so you can't use it unless you start up the generator and unlock the thing--and keep the generator running of course), but I have to say this is the WORST oven I have ever owned. I cannot tell you how much I DESPISE GAS OVENS. Hot spots, cold spots, uneven heating. I think I'm a pretty decent cook but I have not been able to bake anything that comes out the way I mean for it to since owning this range. We have not replaced it because we are planning to sell the house in a year or so and move. But let me tell you, when we get our next (read that final) home, I will have a gas cooktop and double electric convection wall ovens--the biggest ones I can find. For a lady who loves to bake, this danged gas oven has made me seriously unhappy. And we all know, if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Get an electric oven, my friend.

Kamado (???)

Growing up in So.Jersey, gas was readily available and was what I learned to cook on/with. When we moved to Florida I was surprised to be asked gas or electric for the stove, gas of course I replied! I was even more surprised to get a propane stove complete with outdoor grill type bottle (the big tanks require a large deposit) running out of fuel in the middle of dinner prep with 4 hungry kids is NOT a fun experience. Electric stoves are less expensive to purchase and reliable as long as the power is on. The electric oven is great but after 10 yrs I still have occasional problems regulating the burner heat. When it comes to cooking I now have choices, an electric range inside, a propane camp stove, charcoal grill and wood/charcoal barbaQue/smoker outside

I prefer gas, since that's what I learned to cook on. Since I work all the time, cooking isn't a top priority. I've adapted to electric. My mother hates electric. Some posters mentioned gas stoves converted to LP. I think the burners are being overfired. Chances are, the person that converted it didn't properly adjust the gas pressures. It only takes a few minutes to make the correct adjustments.

Just a few thoughts on using a restaurant range in the home:

I have a 36" DCS stand alone restaurant range in my kitchen and a 42" Kitchenaid range hood. The cooktop has four burners and a griddle. I am satisfied with the burners. The griddle makes some great pancakes and patty melts, but is a pita to clean.

The gas oven seems to heat pretty evenly and is quite easy to clean with oven cleaner. It runs a little cooler that the thermostat indicates, so an oven thermometer comes in handy. It has served us well for baking.

I have six inches of space between the range and both the rear wall and cabinet it sits beside. I also had the wall and cabinet side tiled with the same tile used on the floor.

I somehow deleted the bottom 1/2 of the post I started above. I wanted to also say:

The restaurant range in my house puts out a lot of heat when fired up. The walls will get hot to the touch. The six pilot lights also put out a lot of heat on their own, and probably cause my a/c to run a little extra in the summer. The knobs do not include the "push to turn" safety feature common to residential ranges. Kids would have to be supervised carefully around this range.

All in all the range makes cooking fun. It was a nice compromise as it was much less expensive than a comparable Viking or DCS residential range. In my experience, a restaurant range has proven practical for home use, and I am not aware of any local codes regulating stoves. YMMV.

I cut my cooking and baking teeth on Wolf and Viking commercial ranges turning out meals and baked goods for hungry firemen for 27 years. I recall no problems with hot/cold spots or jacked up simmering. Same goes for the mid-50's Gaffers & Sattler (memories, Ancient Mariner?) dual wall mount oven and cooktop gas appliances that were in an old house I bought some time back. Maybe the problems some are having are brand or model specific.

I've never burned milk for custard when heating it over a gas flame, but those disasters on electric cooktops are many and legendary.

Those gas cooktop griddles clean up in a snap with no PITA issues when you clean them while they're still somewhat hot, then use a stone followed by a steaming hot wet kitchen towel for the followup.

Gas

When we moved into our current house 7 years ago it was the 1st time I'd had to use an electric cooktop. I had to learn all over again how to cook!

MikeS.

Perfect timing for this topic. Hopefully, I can get some advice.

The igniter in my oven just dies yesterday (the one for the broiler is just fine). Is there anyway I can replace it myself? Or must I get someone to come in and pay them an arm and a leg [|)].

Thanks in advance for any help.
Bakeless in KY Kitty

We bought the parts when it came time to replace our oven igniter, but my chubby fingers couldn't get things into the right place on the changover. I had to ask a neighbor to finish the task for me (a skinny fingered neighbor). It cost me a chunk of Shoulder the next time I fired up the smoker, but it got our oven back in operation. It is not a big job if you have the 'Owners Manual' for the stove that shows the location and connections for the igniter and a wee bit of manual dexterity to be able to weasel the parts around as needed for the installation.

Any appliance parts store that's worth its salt will have the parts you need. The glowplugs can be hard to get to. Something to keep in mind... Never touch the part of the glowplug that gets hot. The oils from our skin will create hot spots and shorten the life of the glowplug. Going slightly off topic here, something to consider. Your clothes dryer. I would suggest taking the vent off and cleaning the whole thing out (vent pipes and the dryer itself). Doing this will help lengthen the life of the glowplug, and may prevent a fire. This is even more critical if it still uses a standing pilot.

I should add, if you use flex to vent the dryer, use aluminum or hard pipe. The vinyl stuff will cause all kinds of problems.

To get this thing back on topic, if you decide to make repairs yourself, more power to you.

I prefer the gas oven. One reason being is it's quick recovery time getting back up to temp..

I have to weigh in on this one. I recommend an electric oven. The house we are in now has gas and we don't like it. Too much heat and the burning of the gas gives off moisture which we don't need in Florida. We do have self-cleaning.

We swapped an electric range for gas a couple of houses ago and liked it. The next house had a good electric (black glass) and we liked it too.

If we had our druthers we would have a gas range and 2 electric wall ovens.

Cakes