Gas Ranges????

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I am desperate. I cook and do canning. I use big kettles and pots. I also cook for 15 children/grandchildren on holidays. I guess I am trying to say I use my range. Can I get enough performance out of a GE profile or do I go for the big bucks and buy a Wolf or something in between?

[boar_d_laze]

First, please understand that a residential Wolf and a commercial Wolf are completely different ranges.

Among other things, a commercial stove uses a much larger gas inlet than a residential hookup and allows about twice the gas flow. As a consequence, commercial stove burners produce a much larger flame. In a restaurant setting this extra flame is mostly used to preheat pans more quickly. It's also used to ruin cookware. Flame creeping up the outside of a pan is nobody's friend but Vollrath's. However, it's also value for heating up big pots full of liquid at rates faster than geologic time. Nice.

But you don't get that with any residential stove, no matter how pro the look -- not Viking, not Wolf, not nothin'.

Another difference between a commercial and residential stove is ease of cleaning. Residential stoves are easier to clean, easier to keep clean, and require far less labor to keep looking nice. Not to mention, far less heavy-duty aluminum foil.

I wrote a lot more which may (or may not) be useful to you in the Thermador thread. Take a look:
Thermador range reliability?

If you want a pro-look stove you're not going to get much performance difference -- but you'll get a lot of look. It's your kitchen and if you can afford it, why not make it look exactly the way you want? Just make sure you get the features you actually need, and don't be bamboozled by claims of a few thousand extra BTU on the fast burners. They won't make any difference in how you cook.

A 60" stove means two full residential size ovens, 6 burners with room for three 12" pans, and usually a small "grill" grate and a small griddle. A 30" is regular residentia without the grill/griddle in the middel. That's two 12" pans. 48" stoves usually have the good toys on top, can take three 12" as long as one of them is stationary, and the small oven is pretty much Holly Hobby.

For what it's worth, I understand the most performance "bang for the buck" in pro-look stoves are the stoves built by American. If I were buying a 60" dual-fuel tomorrow, it would be an American. However, I had a 60" Viking (when they were still built by Brown) and if I were building a new kitchen, I'd either get two 30" ranges; or, more likely, mix and match a cooktop, a wall oven and a 30" range. Think room for four 12" pans, a good broiler, a convection oven (at least one), self-cleaning ovens, easy cleaning, continuous grates on the top that gets used and so on. In other words, exactly the features I wanted and nothing I didn't. From a price standpoint, two 30" high-end residentials, Kenmore Elites for instance, would be about a 50% saving, while the mix and match thing would also save a couple of $K.

Rant over. To answer your question about GE Profile vs high-zoot residential pro-look, it's a question of look, features and size. A Wolf won't get anything enough hotter or faster than a GE to change your life much. The performance differences between one of those skinny wire-wrapped handle whisks and one with an ergo handle is a lot more significant.

BDL