We chose the 6-burner rangetop with sealed burners. My wife just liked the looks and function of the grates better, and also the knob design. Others prefer the looks of the open burner... so cosmetics are really a personal choice. The sealed burners have the dual stacked feature, which the open do not. Whether that's a big difference or not I don't know. To me it would seem that the sealed unit with these burners might be more versatile, with a wider range of adjustment. The open burner design used on the Wolf has been around a long time and appears to also be used on various other units such as Miele. In that regard one might say it was tried and true. The best thing would be to try both in a real cooking scenario. I think you could do that at a Wolf distributor. Good luck with your choice.

I'm a big fan of my open burners, but it's not a big deal in the following regard: 90% of what most people do on a range can be done with a decent (and not necessarily top of the line) version of a sealed or open burner. That's not to say that the differences cannot be striking or matter to you and how you cook, but it's worth keeping a sort of functional baseline in mind as you sort these things out. WRT which part of the pan receives direct heat -- that's partly a question of the shape of the individual burners. BlueStar (open) has an inner ring and radial extensions -- like rays off a cartoon version of the sun -- so that there's direct flame applied to a significant portion of the bottom of the pan. Thermador (sealed) has a "star" shaped burner, and several mfgs use dual rings. Most of these things can be demoed, if you have the right kind of shop nearby (or a friend with one of the things that interests you). BTW -- the wolf web site should have pictures and features for both their open burners (their version of open) and closed burner models, and I reckon a dealer ought to have a sample of each style, even if it doesn't have precisely the model you're looking at. I did not buy open burners for ease of cleaning, but they have turned out to be pretty darn easy to clean. There are 2 stainless drip trays that slide out very easily -- not visible if you're just sitting in the kitchen or even standing at the range. On a daily basis, it's mostly a swipe of a dish towel or paper towel. If there's more of a mess, it's easy enough to pull an individual grate and bowl at a time and take a brush and hot water to them at the sink, although they are on the heavy side. As others have posted -- plenty of posts on these questions on the appliance board.

Thank John for additional data point on BlueStar. 3min 40sec seems to be consistent with Trevor's test on Capital 3min 36sec with 25k BTU burner. For my AEG induction wok hob @ 3.2kW, it takes just 2min 52sec to evaporate 80ml of water. It is best however to see in pictures how this behaves. This is a 14" wok that fits the curvature rather well. It sits with bottom half or third touching the recess area. This is somewhere around where the water edge is. It is also around the area where induction coil locates. You can see the darker seasoned area. That's where the main heating zone and my main cooking zone is. At a few seconds in after the induction unit starts on P, we can see bubbles forming. That makes sense as it is the area where induction coil is. At 11sec, steam starts to form. Bubbles now form a solid ring around the edge. At 16sec, steam starts to fill up my cooking area. At 41sec, this is smoking hot wok. Water is boiling vigorously though out. It is a bit difficult to see with this amount of steam, but you know what it is. This show the amount of steam from a different angle. At around 2min mark, the huge heat from induction is dying down. This is mainly because the water level drops below the area of the induction coil. So it is entering the much cooler spot. The heat that keeps evaporating the water now is from conduction, which is not the best thing for thin carbon steel. You can see that it takes quite a long time to evaporate this very small amount of remaining water. The slight red glow clearly shows where the induction coil is. At last, we get there by 2min 52sec. Cheers to induction wok hob. You're the best.

@M. Abbott i asked about which ovens you have used because there are some differences that people say in the baking and cooking pages I read. I did not pay all that much attention to it in all the ovens I have used and often attributed to other things like the brand of the oven or the recipe. These are not good or bad because what might be good for one, might be not as good for someone else. In reading cooking and baking forums over and over there are things people say over and over. -Gas ovens are better for roasting or they brown better. -it is very hard to keep added steam in a gas oven, for something like bread baking or even a pan of water used to add humidity -Electric ovens are better for baking -going from electric to gas,” my cakes don’t rise as well and they look dried out” -going from gas to electric,this oven has too much steam -There is a lot more heat and moisture from a gas oven in the kitchen. For a long time it was taught that gas ovens have moist heat because water is a byproduct of combustion. This is still taught and is even on some manufacturer’s web sites. This is not the only source of moisture in the oven. There is moisture produced by the food cooking. Because you have combustion, a gas oven has a much bigger vent and it’s purpose is to get rid of these products of combustion, moisture and other gasses and some heat goes along with it. Added steam and the moisture from food cooking are all vented at a much higher rate than in an electric oven which has a small vent. As for better browning in gas, we started understanding more about the Maillard and other chemical reactions that cause browning, we can see that you must have drier conditions to increase browning. As long as you have moisture on the surface, there is evaporative cooling. As soon as the superficial moisture finishes evaporating, then the temperature rises to allow browning. This the same principle as you have when using a wok. If you have too much food, the liquid can’t evaporate so it won’t brown until it can evaporate. Why would people say electric ovens are better for baking? Some say it has better temperature control. Meh, some have a lot worse because of the way the temperature is controlled by the computer boards. With some electric ovens, you have modes that direct the heat from different directions, maybe more from the top for roasting and more from the bottom for baking. some electric ovens have the ability to control humidity. These would be some of the best combination steam ovens that can vent steam out or add moisture to provide the optimum humidity. They are also built to withstand steam. Thermador is the only one to have it in a range I believe and it is 48”. Some have “true” or European” convection which is oversold on evening out the heat in an oven. Some cause a direct, high fan speed air current with a heating element around the fan so causes over browning on the side facing the fan. This can happen with any type of fan assisted convection so manufacturers use dual fans, baffles or even fans that reverse periodically to break Up the air flow. Most electric ovens have the hidden bake element so You do not get the same radiant heat that you get with the open element on the bottom.. you can read the manual to get some idea about how the ovens you are considering do any of this. As far as the increased humidity in an electric oven, this promotes Starch gelatinization. It can give things that rise a little bit longer time to do that. It also changes the type of crust. This is why bread bakers add steam. Check the broiler size on the ovens. The infrared gas is hotter but may be a lot smaller than the electric one. I will I’ll try to post on burners after while.