[elufler]

Hello - we are in the process of rebuilding our home and creating my dream kitchen. We have concluded that based on design and needs we definitely want the 48", 6-burner w/griddle, 2-oven, dual fuel range. Now it comes down to.... well, money. I am pulling for higher-end Wolf, while my husband is a GE loyalist and the Monogram line is $2-3,000 less. Any advice either way?? PS - I do *all* of the cooking, and am very into it.

[Mezzaluna]

I had a "professional" style range (it was a Viking) and couldn't wait to trade it in for a GE dual fuel. Mine is 30" wide, so there may be differences, but it's self-cleaning!!!! That's worth a lot, believe me. I like the electric oven, even though I learned to cook on a gas cooktop and a gas wall oven. I like that the grids allow me to move pots and pans all the way across the range top as if it were a flat top. It's also easy to clean. Be sure you get the type with the enameled surface around the sealed burners. I looked first at Sears, and all the GE dual fuel had a glass surface around the burners. When we went to a high-end store they were enameled- very much easier to clean! The drips don't weld themselves to the surface and can very easily worked off.

[elufler]

The Wolf is self-cleaning as well. It also has 2 convection fans; not sure about Monogram (Viking & Dacor have 1).

[firerose0801]

I personally tend to prefer the Wolf. I ended up getting this 36" commercial range from them and it is working out fantastically! Good luck with your dream kitchen!

[tontibearboy]

Originally Posted by elufler

Hello - we are in the process of rebuilding our home and creating my dream kitchen. We have concluded that based on design and needs we definitely want the 48", 6-burner w/griddle, 2-oven, dual fuel range. Now it comes down to.... well, money. I am pulling for higher-end Wolf, while my husband is a GE loyalist and the Monogram line is $2-3,000 less. Any advice either way?? PS - I do *all* of the cooking, and am very into it.

I cook at home a lot on a Wolf dual fuel range with 6 burners and a griddle. I love everything about the range with two exceptions: (1) Using the in-oven probe is difficult. The probe is supposed to be plugged into an in-oven port, after the oven has preheated. Of course, a hotpad is necessary to do this. But the hotpad (or mitt) eliminates the degree of finger dexterity that is ideally desirable for the task. (2) Too much grease from the griddle ends up under, rather than in, the grease catcher bin. It's a clean up mess. The problem is caused by what I believe to be a design flaw. There is a notch under the lip of the front edge of the griddle plate. I believe the intent is that the grease will drop down into the catcher bin when it hits this notch. However, either the notch is placed too far back or the leading edge of the grease catcher bin slants too far to the front. The result is that the grease ends up under, rather than in, the bin. These are relatively small flaws. But you don't really expect flaws when you spend thousands of dollars.

[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by firerose0801

I personally tend to prefer the Wolf. I ended up getting this 36" commercial range from them and it is working out fantastically! Good luck with your dream kitchen!

Don't confuse the Wolf commercial line with the residential commercial-style line, and don't be influenced by Wolf commercial's wonderful reputation. They're built with different components, on different chassis, in different factories. The only commonality is the name and the logo. Even the ownerships are (or at least were) not exactly the same. Wolf residential is wholly owned by Sub-Zero. Very cool logo.

Residential commercial-style ranges are somewhat problematic -- but far less so than they used to be. They've reached the stage of reasonable reliability and reasonable design for home purposes -- including cleaning under the griddle and stove-top. Don't kid yourself -- as much as you cook like a pro, and as much as you want your kitchen to have that pro look a home and restaurant stove do things differently -- and should.

If I understand the market correctly the current "best bang for the buck" in dual fuel/convection 6-burners is American Range. I'll let elufler google around for the best deal.

Lots o' Luck,
BDL