OK, my 2 cents - My DH and I will be re-building our house due to damage suffered by Hurricane Ike. Now, I get to build my "Dream" kitchen (within reason of course). The first thing I began researching were professional style ranges. I have looked at Wolf, Viking, DCS, Bluestar, Five Star and the professional versions of the GE, Jenn Air and Kitchen Aid. After much time researching, pricing and talking to owners of such brands, I have made my decision and it is the 48" Bluestar (not sure the configuration I want just yet). I wanted the 60", but our designer convinced me that my space really can't support the extra 12". SO, I reluctantly accept that I will not have 2 full size ovens. (I didn't want to have to have a wall oven, because I wanted the added cabinet space.) Anyway, to make a long story short - Initially my DH told me I could get *whatever* I wanted, so I never mentioned price, until one of our friends was looking at the house plans and pointed out the 48" range noted in the plans. He made the comment that you could almost buy a car for the price of some of those ranges... DH then looks at me and asks, just how much are they? I told him between 8K and 25K, depending on brand, size and configuration. I thought he was gonna faint! Later that evening he asked me why I hadn't told him how much they were. I *had* told him that they were ALOT more than our previous Jenn-Air Pro cooktop and wall oven. I wasn't hiding anything from him, he had said I could have *whatever* I wanted. I work hard, I travel alot, and when I am home we entertain quite a bit and he has seen me struggle with my 5 burner cooktop and single oven, for years now! He tried to convince me that there really is no difference between the GE that is 3K as opposed to the Bluestar @ 11-15K. I was shocked and upset that he would do this to me. I thought before I spoke and then I said very calmly, "Which would you rather have an 18Â john-boat or an 18Â Robalo?". Being the avid fisherman he is, he smiled and said, "Say No More!". I hope to be ordering my range some time in May or June.*SMILE*

I bought the Jenn Air 720-0061 LP from Lowes at least 12 or 13 years ago -- must have been around 2005(?) -- I remember that Lowes had a great promotion going on at the time. Anyway - I'm surprised to see the negative experiences reported here (not disputing them at all, just surprised). My own experience has been the opposite. I've had the grill outside in my backyard, and only bothered with the grill cover for part of the first winter. So this grill has lived outside in central NJ for about 13 years. It was excellent for the first few years, after which I noted that the max heat I could obtain seemed to be dropping a bit year by year. This grill actually became something of an fan item on BBQSOURCE-FORUMS.com 13 years ago: you can find threads I participated in back then under the username "Jon". In discussions with others that I "met" on the forum, I learned about proper care of the grill, and a few of us actually got into "modding" the grill as well. The grill itself was made by NexGrill. Maytag owns the Jenn-Air trademark, and licensed it for use with Lowes to promote this product line. (how's THAT for confused branding???). Many many stainless steel grills in the US are actually made by NexGrill or another one of a tiny handful of factories in China that specialize in these. Apparently, the company in the US that sources these from the Chinese factories can spec out the grade of parts used to manufacture their branded product. A lot of the "stainless steel" in products sold here are pretty low grade stainless. For whatever reason, though, it turns out that the Jenn-Air 720-0061 LP from Lowes was built with all high-grade stainless -- and there are no enameled parts. This grill, sitting outside in my yard for 13 years, uncovered, used hundreds of times, has zero rust on it -- none at all. Once I decided that it was worth trying to improve on the cooking temps I was getting with the several-year-old grill, I started by partially dismantling it, removing the stainless steel grids, the "flame tamers" (the deflectors that sit on top of the burners, but under the cooking grids), and the burners themselves -- which are made, btw, out of cast stainless steel. I found that the cooking grids are discolored, but show NO pitting, rust, etc. These are virtually like new with some scrubbing. I cleaned out the Venturi tubes that combine are and gas on its way to the burners: spiders tend to build webs in these, blocking air flow. Once I pulled out the 3 burners, I upended them and tapped them on a large rock: years worth of corroded metal powder came out -- this is natural build up over a period of years, and had also apparently been blocking air/gas flow. The flame tamers (thin steel sheet metal) are definitely corroded -- but usable for now (however, I address this further down in this note). Finally - I decided to try improving further on the max heat situation (you'll see this discussed on the BBQSOURCE-FORUMS in my thread(s) and others). Anyone who knows gas burners already knows this, but I learned that the maximum gas flow is limited by a tiny brass valve orifice: this is a small brass cylinder with a tiny hole in the middle, threaded to fit into the gas line. When you turn the knob on your grill (not the propane tank), the gas flows from the valve and then through the orifice before it can get to the burners. Turns out that if you're a bit handy, increasing the diameter of the orifice every so slightly (we're talking hundredths of an inch increase), enough extra gas flows to yield a significantly hotter flame. I searched the web and found that among all the replacement parts available for this grill, I was able to order 3 brand new brass orifices -- undrilled -- for about $2.50 each (these things are tiny -- about the size of a Tic-Tac). I drilled them out with a hand held drill to a slightly larger opening than the original and then put them and all the other parts back together. All in all, I spend about $7.50 on parts, and put in perhaps 3 hours of labor. In return, I had the original grill -- now several years old -- working better than new, achieving surface temperature of about 650 degrees F. Still all working just fine. I just did another search (Nov 2018) by grill model number, and found that I can STILL get replacement parts for the cooking grid (stainless steel or cast iron -- I prefer steel, but don't need to replace these at all yet), the flame tamers ($60 will get me three of these in stainless steel), and the burners themselves: about $75 each for an exact replacement of the original cast stainless steel items. If the igniters stop working, they can get replaced for $15 to $30 dollars. In essence, my 13 year old grill is still working well, and for perhaps $300 I can replace the burners and flame tamers - which are the ONLY parts showing signs of aging - and make this like new once again. A comparable grill, out of the same quality stainless, would cost far more than that. Admittedly, I'm handy, and like to fix things when I can rather than just trashing and replacing them. This may seem like a bit of a stretch to some readers, but nothing I did was especially difficult, and really wasn't very time consuming at all. Sure - a shiny new grill is always nice, but this one still looks excellent, and works just about like new, after 13 years, with only a small amount of maintenance effort needed. I might replace it -- but I'm wondering how much I'll have to spend to get something that works at least this well, and will last as long as this one has. - Jon

I've been grilling BF the past couple of days on his views about getting a grill. He says, "We don't need one, we won't use it." But I know he has been eyeing that little Weber one whenever we go to K-mart or the hardware store. I like the little front tray part on the marine one Tricia posted. I think the cheif plus for us about having a gas grill would be ease of use and the chance to have some outdoor cooking space to supplement our tiny kitchen. My stove area is claustrophobic to say the least. It would give BF a chance to cook without having me in the way making the salad or whatnot. As it is, cooking together is a study in patience in my "one butt" kitchen. We dream of having our own place someday, with room for a big garden too. I've had some rounds of illness that have made it hard just to keep up with what I have here. BF is my rock, G-d bless him! BF has a covered back patio at his house just off the kitchen back door so he can grill year round and he definately has used it as a kitchen extension since his kitchen is almost as small as mine, albeit maybe a little bit better laid out. I don't see us grilling in the winter when the patio is full of snow. We'll not be covering our tiny patio for a good long while, if ever. I do have an extra patio umbrella though, so maybe I could leave it set up over the grill in the winter, lol! BTW, anyone who doubts the benefits of vegetation for combating the heat island effect should hang out in my yard. It is probably 10 degrees cooler out there than it used to be when I just had a big ol' wooden deck on the back of my house. I never went out there in the summer, it was hot and I felt like I was on display for the whole row/neighborhood.

It depends on ho0w hot your fire is....and how thick your steaks are. And remember for years and years, we didn't grill in a charcoal or gas flamed oven. When you have a flame grilled steak at a fine restaurant, it's done on an open grill. Don't worry about loosing heat when you open the grill. I never grill a steak that is thinner than 1 1/2 inches....or if I do I am very cautious. I grill for 30 seconds on each side then turn the center burner off...I grill about 4 to 5 minutes for an 1 1/2 inch steak rare to medium rare. You really can't give a time grilled meat, so much depends on the size of the meat, how hot your grill is, how close to the flame, how cold or warm the meat was when you put it on, the out side temperature....and likely more.