I also have the open burners, so am not who you're asking, but am wondering...If the black surface is the same on both, and is a pain to clean when you can take it to the sink to scrub, I don't know why it would be easier to try to clean in place? Not trying to argue, like I said, just wondering. I also went from electric smoothtop to the Wolf gas rangetop and it was a bit of a shock for someone who likes easy-care. ;-) When I got mine, there were people here who had gladly replaced sealed burners with open, because when things spilled in the sealed area, it was so hard to clean out.

kellycares I currently have Dacor sealed burner cooktop with an 18K BTU burner, but it does not seem to get quite hot enough to do a good sear on meats. So, the Capital cooktop has one 20K burner, so I was hoping it might be a good choice. You are only adding a little over 10% more heat, but get yourself a cast iron pan and it will hold much more heat than most other types of skillets. I can get it smoking with my 16K burner and a 12 inch skillet. Oil the meat not the skillet. If you want something in the 22-23K range also consider Bluestar. It also has open burners. But then i read about on this forum about how open burners actually get hotter than the sealed burners. They don't get hotter but the heat goes more to the center of the pan. Open burners flare a little more. The difference is greater as you increase the heat but I have never found it to be an issue. It might be an issue if you need to have very high heat for a pan less than 7 inches. I'm not sure what you would cook that way but I'm sure someone would need to cook that way. It would also be useful if you stirfry a lot. I could consider this but am worried about the clean-up. Are they a pain to keep clean? Cleaning is a matter of preference. There are videos of the cleaning processes on youtube so you can make up your own mind. Sealed is a snap-just a quick wipe. If I have anything that would require elbow grease, I just put a hot soapy rag over it and let it soak while I am doing something else. I had a Dacor ER36D with a black enamel top and it never got clean but the range I have now with black enamel is easy to clean. I am not sure why that is. Look at the Bluestar as well and the videos about cleaning it to compare as some think it is easier than the CC. I also like the features of the Capital Maestro Double wall oven. It has the moist heating feature and the ribbon infrared broiler, along with the convection. It seems like a good alternative to the Wolf oven which also has the moist heat, but costs about $3000 more. Wolf has a steam oven. Capital specifically states theirs is not a steam oven. Capital's New Dual Fuel Series Engineered for Best of Electric & Gas Options Why do you want moist heat? Capital seems to think it will make your roasts moist but this is myth. You a actually want dry heat for roasting to provide crispiness. This is why you have convection, which is drying, the opposite of moist heat. This quote is from the website. "Capital's latest innovation, combines the best of stable electric heat and the moisture of a convection oven." This astounding to read this on their website. What the..? They do not have a convection roast mode, which brings more heat from the top to aid in browning. Adding moisture for roasting will also decrease browning. I don't understand the concept as most people want browning and crispiness in their food as it adds flavor. Interesting on their website they say it is an electric oven that behaves like gas. I have no idea what that means. But my big question about these products is do they work as advertised and how is the reliability? Reliability is unknown. Since you don't know that, I would look at customer service for whatever brand you want to buy. There is a lot written about many brands on this forum. Search the brand on the forum by scrolling to the bottom of appliance "messages" page. I am personally very leery of ovens controlled by electronics that have no track record. Consider two single ovens instead of one double. dodge59 has an Electrolux Icon oven and Electrolux Icon speed oven I think. Maybe he will comment. If you want moisture for some reason, you can easily add a pan of water with much more control of the amount of steam than a fixed amount added to a small chamber.

Posted by greasetrap There was also an interesting comparison of Wolf vs. BS burners by a place called Eurostoves. _____ Keep in mind these are marketing videos made to sell BS. These burners are not made by Wolf at present but the dual stacked burners are. "The heat is thrown to the side of the pan" You have to look at how you cook. If you put a 5 inch pan on the Wolf burner and turn it up all the way the flame might go around the pan, but who does that? This happens on the BS too later in the video. Personally I would switch it to the small pan burner on the Wolf (and Capital Culinarian) and use the smallest BS burner. I use a 7 inch sauce pan on my Wolf with mod heat on regular burners to make caramel and the pan heats evenly even though it is old Revereware with only 0.5 mm of copper. You really can't stir the caramel so it has to cook evenly. If it was a problem I could use the small pan burner. "Tiny simmer burner" If you use a heat conductive pan (copper or aluminum)this is not an issue but Wolf has the dual stacked burners of the same diameter now. He comments about the All Clad pans not being very good but Fissler being better. It very much depends on what line within the brands that you are talking about. There are good and bad in both. It is difficult to evaluate plied cookware as the amount of conductive metals inside is often an unknown. For highest performance you are better with thick copper or aluminum. If you look at the video, the 5 inch pan loses heat on the smallest star shaped burner. The wolf small pan burner is probably the best option. "You can simmer better on this because of more even heat" I would want to know the BTU rating to determine which will go the lowest. Temperature given by BS in relation to the burner means nothing. Along with the amount if BTUs temperature in the pan depends in the size, shape, metal the pan is made of and what you are cooking. Evenness can be provided by the cookware. The star shaped burner would be a help in providing even heat to something like cast iron or steel as long as the pan is properly sized to the burner. If you use the smallest star burner on large fry pan, having the heat to the center is uneven. Your ring burner might be better and more even in that case. BS does have a higher Btu rating on the high side. This is good for heating something faster. Water will boil a few minutes quicker. You can heat a cast iron pan hot enough to sear a steak on either. It will take a little longer to reach temperature on the Wolf but it will get hot enough to vaporize oil. Higher BTUs will help with recovery of heat in a pan when you add food. They have advantages or disadvantages depending on how you cook. You do have to look at marketing very carefully whether it is videos or cooking demos or whatever. Even though they are presented a "studies" or quasi science, look at who is presenting the info or paying for the...

We've had our 30" BS RNB for eight or nine years now. I have used the oven extensively and find that it is very reliable. It does exactly what it's supposed to do; nothing more and nothing less. I like working with it, other than the fact that it takes really long to pre-heat. The fact that it is so predictable makes it a joy to bake with. I usually store my large Fibrament baking stone in the oven and don't take it out when I use the oven. I don't think it makes a huge difference for everyday use, but it might contribute a little to my overall very positive impression of the oven. In general though, most ovens benefit from a) more thermal mass, and b) dispersal of thermal energy. So, I almost always keep either a baking stone or at least a cookie sheet on the bottom shelf of any of the ovens that I have ever owned. Having said that, we now have a Miele combination steam oven and a Miele SpeedOven in addition to the RNB. I find the SpeedOven isn't much of an alternative. I am happy that I bought it as an extra oven that happens to use the same space as the microwave; but I am not sure the cost is quite justified by the benefits. So, don't buy, if money is tight. On the other hand, the CSO is a huge improvement over anything I have owned before. It preheats much faster than the RNB and the fine-grained moisture control is awesome. The smaller cavity size is rarely an issue. I now use the CSO for everything. The only downside is the rather anemic broiler element. These days, the RNB only gets used if I need a good broiler. None of my other appliances even come close.