Thursday, April 24, 2008

Get the gas!

A lot of people stumble across this blog looking for answers on smooth-top electric vs. gas stoves.

Here's my opinion: Go with the GAS.

I am so disappointed that i let myself get talked into buying the smooth-top electric stove. I wish i had splurged and gone with the gas.

The smooth-top is much too high maintenance. You have to be very careful about not scratching it by dragging the pots across the top which is very tempting especially since it's a smooth top and when you have a pot of water boiling over.

Your pots and pans must be 100% flat. Nothing wonky - not even slightly. We have had to get rid of so many frying pans because they weren't 100% flat, it's ridiculous. We even had to get rid of a few wrought-iron pans because they had a ridge along the outside of the bottom of the pan. When a pan is not completely flat and it doesn't make full contact with the stove, the stove "thinks" that there is nothing there and it will turn off the element.

Along those same lines, if i turn up the thermosat on an element to max, it will regulate itself by turning itself on and off frequently. It's trying to maintain an even temperature, but it has the opposite effect. It's very annoying when you're trying to boil or fast fry.

The element stays hot long after you turn it off. I didn't think this would bother me, but it does.

Along with the element staying hot for a while after you turn it off, is you can't clean it until the element cools down completely. This is especially annoying when something has spilled over and you want to wipe it up before it gets hard and crusty. You can't, and you risk burning the cloth you're using and having the fibers stick to the stove permanently.

Again, the surface is very fragile and high maintenance. If you spill any sort of hot sticky stuff on the stove, you're in trouble. Anything that is hot with sugar will pit the stove top - not good.

Furthermore, the surface is just plain hard to clean. We have to use a special cleaner for smooth top stoves, and you have to remember that you can't use a regular scouring pad to remove anything that's stuck on - you have to use a "special" scouring pad that will not harm the surface.

All this to say that i wish i had spent the extra dough and got a gas stove. Just the piece of mind alone that i don't have to be so gentle around the stove would have been worth the extra bucks, nevermind the added bonus of having gas.

2 comments:

Le Petit Chic said...

The condo we bought came with a smooth top electric stove...we really wanted gas, but we compromised. I definitely want gas in our next place!

Pendullum said...

Okay, now I feel like a freak... I loved my glass top stove...
Only because I am such a very messy cook...and my sauces tend to overflow and a gas stove I know would be just a disaster waiting to happen with me...
Lioke last night,I made a delicious creole dish with mango and cream and about a thousand spices with prawns... and of course the tri coloured pasta boiledd over as it would and I spilt the cream all over.. But I wiped it down no prob...
I always have a thousand pots on the go...SoI suppose the surface is never seen and that is why I am okay with it...