15

I know this borders on too subjective but.... I had a nice Induction stove top (36" Bosch) and wall ovens, then I moved to an older house with Gas. Worse, with attic and walls that make it very difficult (and ugly with conduit) to put in an induction range, so I am living with gas.

I hate it. It's definitely better than radiant electric, but...

The house was freshly remodeled so it was a new range, a GE JGSS66SEL5SS which appears to be at the low end of gas ranges, though not the bottom. Burners max out at 15k BTU, oven is 16k.

The oven is a one problem -- it pre-heats very quickly but the temperatures vary wildly from center to edges, like parchment paper in the center nice and white and brown to almost black on the edges. So it's basically half-size with me using only the center. It also has "steam clean" that does nothing (literally - the water does not even evaporate), no self-clean mode.

The other issue is that the burners are quick to react (of course) but weak. Boiling water is very slow, and in a big pot (e.g. I use for steaming things) on full it can barely get a continuous boil going.

The center griddle is nice, though also heats unevenly, hot in the center, cool on edges despite an oval burner.

Here is my question -- are better (i.e. pricier) ranges actually better, or is this just how gas is? If I look at something like a high end LG gas range (for example), am I likely to be more satisfied? They clearly have faster burners (22k vs 15k) but is uneven heat in the oven just how gas works, or will a better range have better air flow and more even heat?

Or was I just spoiled with electric ovens and induction cook tops?

How much actual difference is there in such issues between 30" ranges (and no, I really do not have space for 36" or to switch to cooktop + wall ovens, it's an old house with many limitations).

Linwood

Improve this question
16
  • 6
    I've cooked on friend's gas stoves, and although all of the burners look the same, there might be one or two that can crank out more flame than the others, so you don't have to wait 30 mins for a pot of water to boil for pasta. If you have to, you might be able to get a single countertop induction unit, as many are 15amps, but I've never used them for boiling water and other really high heat uses.
    – Joe
    Commented Nov 18 at 16:43
  • 7
    Have somebody measure the gas pressure at the appliance and verify it is within spec. Also, newer higher-pressure gas systems have a indoor regulator at the point of use, that has to be properly installed and adjusted. You are on natural gas, not LP? Appliance modifications are needed for LP.
    – user71659
    Commented Nov 18 at 22:48
  • 6
    It's that you switched from a five thousand dollar induction stove, to gas for five hundred w/o convection.
    – Mazura
    Commented Nov 19 at 7:13
  • 3
    btw. I learned only recently that apparently gas stoves are a health risk
    – mb21
    Commented Nov 19 at 14:35
  • 6
    @mb21 They can be, but with good fume extraction the risk is minimized. The problem is there are a lot of gas stoves in kitchens with poor extraction or no extraction at all.
    – Crazymoomin
    Commented Nov 19 at 18:40

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
18

the temperatures vary wildly from center to edges

Yes, this is a common problem with gas ranges.

In my experience, people frequently choose an incorrect pan size for the burner. I prefer to use a pan such that the flames don't hit the outer edge of the pan, but that they make a ring that's maybe 2/3 of the radius between the center and edge. That way, you have the least uneven heating, because the pan bottom gets less hot with distance from the flames, and also the pan middle cools down less than the pan edges (which both have more area to radiate away the heat, and are not heated from two opposite sides within a given diameter).

Range design can improve the problem with two approaches. First, the engineers can choose the burner's physical size and flame holes angle to control the size of the flames ring. So they can ideally choose a power output that's sufficient to heat the pan well when placed as described above. Second, they can make a two-ring burner, such that, for a wide pan, you have heating in more area than from a single ring.

Also, when it comes to evenness of heating: you can control that by choosing your pan material. There is a tradeoff: a pan that's slow to conduct will have a more even heating pattern, but will also react more sluggishly to changes in burner output. But frequently, a food is highly sensitive to either reaction times or to even heating, but not so much both at once, so you can use your pan choices to get whatever you need most for a given dish. Especially after you've been "confined" to induction-suitable materials only, it might be a good idea to explore how other pans will handle on the new stove.

Also, to address the "subjective" part: it's indeed normal that people learn cooking by doing it always on the same range, and when they switch to a different range, that handles subtly differently, their skill is "out of whack" and they end up hating the new range. We have had questions here from people who switched from gas and induction and hated it with passion! So, while your observations about the objective differences make sense and it's absolutely a good thing to consider other models, you should also give yourself time to adjust. Things which used to "just work" by instinct might need a more conscious control now, not because the new range is worse, but because it's different. This effect is unavoidable, but it will disappear with time, as you build an implicit mental model of how the new range handles in different situation, and start using it instinctively again. This is a component which will be always present, independently of the range quality.

Improve this answer
10
  • 10
    You quote a complaint about the gas oven and then talk about problems with a gas burner. This seems to leave the most important question open, do gas ovens always heat unevenly or would it be possible to replace it with a more even gas oven. I suspect that other gas ovens are better or we'd hear more complaints, but not sure that's past where Linwood has already thought. My experience is that gas burners can easily boil water, so I think we can all agree that better burners are possible.
    – mdfst13
    Commented Nov 19 at 4:03
  • 3
    @rumtscho: OP complains about both. They also noted that the center girdle heated unevenly. Thus your advice on pans are definitely on the mark.
    – Matthieu M.
    Commented Nov 19 at 9:41
  • 3
    @mdfst13 gas ovens with a convection fan have less temperature variation - most ovens I've seen in the last 10+ years have a convection fan.
    – Luciano
    Commented Nov 19 at 13:38
  • 1
    @Linwood sorry for the misunderstanding - when I wrote that, I had stove burners in mind, not oven burners, because I overlooked the "oven" reference in your paragraph about unevenness. I have no idea if this applies to oven burners, as I have never used a gas oven (or even seen one in real life)! If you thought I wrote about oven burners, I can understand it if you remove the accept mark and give it to the other answer.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Commented Nov 20 at 10:32
  • 1
    If you are using cast iron pans suitable for induction, they are about the worst possible choice for gas. You need pans with a thick base to spread the heat from the burner, but low heat capacity so as maximize the rate at which heat reaches the food. This means aluminium, or (usually expensive) stainless steel with a well-attached aluminium or aluminium-filled base. (Cheap pans with badly attached aluminium bases heat up unevenly, and you get burned patches).
    – nigel222
    Commented Nov 20 at 15:19
9

Gas can be very good, you just need the right equipment. Low-end gas ranges have teeny burners and take ages to cook anything, better equipment has much bigger burners. I have a 5 burner cooktop with 2 double ring wok burners, and I have no problem boiling a big pot of water quickly. So, better equipment will give you a better result. Keep in mind more expensive brands do not necessarily give you better burners, you can buy a very expensive, swanky brand that's still pathetic. You need to look at the amount of heat in kW or BTUs that the burners crank out, not the name on the front.

One good option may be to buy used, depending on what's in your area you may snap up a bargain - sometimes people get rid of perfectly good stuff.

Improve this answer
9
  • Not sure if this is out of bounds here but then - which brands would provide a better oven. It's pretty easy to tell the burners by BTU, but the evenness of temperature in the oven is a different issue.
    – Linwood
    Commented Nov 18 at 18:36
  • 2
    My general understanding is that electric ovens are better in a number of ways than gas - when I redid my kitchen (> 20 years ago) I switched the cooktop from electric to gas and later replaced the single electric wall oven with a double with self-cleaning and convection. But while I had to do a lot of work for the bigger oven (brick wall), both gas and electric connections were easy because kitchen right above utility room. Most people don't have it that easy.
    – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
    Commented Nov 18 at 18:40
  • Yes. My issue is space and power. An inaccessible attic, built on a slab, running anything but the 15a/120v outlet to where the stove is requires major work, or extreme ugly (conduit outside, down the wall and thru the wall behind the stove), or removal of a lot of ceiling and wall (including wall tile and cabinets). The cost of the range, even a good one, is minor compared to the cost and ugliness of getting higher amperage electricity to that area.
    – Linwood
    Commented Nov 18 at 18:58
  • I don't know where you are so cannot advise on brands @Linwood. I would suggest trying to get the one you have fixed first before buying new. It may work fine after a bit of a cleaning and servicing.
    – GdD
    Commented Nov 18 at 20:20
  • 4
    @rumtscho As a random data point, my current oven (Gorenje BPS747A32XG) takes roughly 1000W for top heat, 1100W for bottom heat, and some 2100W in convection mode. So roughly 2 kW is enough to make it happy in either top+bottom or convection mode.
    – TooTea
    Commented Nov 19 at 9:45

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.