I find the SilPat baking pads to be great. I have also tried the Le Creuset ones, but they are too thick and definitely cut down dramatically on the induction performance. If the SilPat's cut down on performance, it is so miniscule as to be not noticeable to me. The SilPat's come in rectangular and octagonal shapes. The octagonal ones most closely fit the shape of the burners, but they both work equally well. There are various ceramic cleaners on the market and most work quite well. Often a spritz of Windex or white vinegar and water does the job of removing oil splatters. It is also handy having a single-edged razor if you ever get something baked onto the surface. It is a very rare occurence, due to the nature of induction cooking, but it can occur if you are cooking at the highest levels and something gets under the pan. Compared to cleaning a gas rangetop or electric cooktop, induction cooktops are far easier to clean. Greg

I wanted to contribute my experience- we got the capital culinarian all gas 48" w/ the griddle (so we have 6 burners) within the past year and I have been using it for a few months. I LOVE LOVE LOVE our decision!! I too did a lot of research and did not read many negative reviews about it- and they are very well built, pretty, and simple design-wise (my husband is a contractor and thought they were most similar to the commercial ranges he has worked on, i.e. if something breaks it would be easy to fix). I probably wouldn't need 6 burners just for cooking- but it is nice to have. I also do a lot of canning/preserving, and do use 6 burners at the same time (simmer for warming lids, canning pot, pot for extra hot water, pot w/ stuff to be canned, pot w/ syrup for the stuff to be canned, one pot w/ dinner cooking). My husband loves the griddle- very easy to make breakfasts, hot sandwiches, etc. You could always do 4 burners and a grill/griddle as an option if you don't can/need 6 burners. Also, I really enjoy the big oven on the 48" (not sure how this compares in size to the 36" since the 48" has a large and small oven and the 36" one large oven). It can fit 9x13" pans side by side, and cookie sheets. The roll out racks aren't as smooth as some of the other brands we looked at (we liked the thermador racks the best- very smooth) but they work pretty well. Also, I haven't had any problems w/ the baking heat/evenness, and our oven is gas (which I think is typically worse than electric ovens?). I haven't baked bread yet- but have done a lot of other foods (cookies, casseroles, etc.). So if it were me I would definitely do the 36" over the 30" :-) It sounds like you would use it w/ all the cooking that you do. If you have any questions about mine please let me know :-)

kekramer, I definitely use my CSO more than the M series. While I love the M series convection, the CSO heats up faster and is waaaayyyy more versatile. I am also a bread baker and this oven is a game changer for me (I have broken oven glass in prior ovens by spilling water on the glass trying to introduce steam lol). You can get EXCELLENT results with bread in this oven. There have been multiple threads on Houzz about how to get the best bread baking results with a CSO, and here is my method. I run the steam first for about 10 minutes, making sure that the oven cavity is good and steamy with plenty of condensation on the bottom of the oven. Then I load the bread loaf (or loaves), put it on auto steam bake, and find that the excess water in the oven provides even more spring to the loaf after the beginning steam phase is over and has cut over to higher baking temps. The Wolf CSO has another mode called "Convection Humid" which is great for quick breads. It seals the cavity during Convection so that steam cannot escape, thus making the bread more moist. Muffins and quick breads really shine in this mode. Side note, I use my M series to proof bread. The proof function works really well. If you make jams and jellies, the steam oven can also be used to do the canning step in replacement for a boiling water bath (BWB). The jars can be steamed to sanitize before filling, and then steamed at 210 degrees for 30 minutes. It works great, and best of all, no tip overs and sealing failures.

>>>". . . two burner 15 inch cooktop and use a portable induction cooktop when we need the third burner. . . Has anybody done this?"<<< Yes, and I can see the attraction of the minimalist kitchen idea, but I'm inclined to agree with palimpsest and Helen, at least without knowing more about your situation. Initially, you would have to completely replace the countertop if you downsize to a 15" cooktop. OTOH, it might be possible (and relatively inexpensive) to have the contractor cut the existing countertop in place. For example, if you chose to replace your 24" Bosch electric with, say, a Wolf 24" induction cooktop, the countertop subcontractor would only need to shave the edges of the cutout, making it ½" wider (side to side) and ¼" deeper (front to back). But maybe your countertop is made of something which cannot be cut in place? Maybe your current electric cooktop was flush mounted into the countertop? Do your aesthetic preferences (or the local real estate market) require everything to be precisely and exactly centered within a thousandth of a millimeter, meaning that that the countertop must be taken offsite to a computerized cutter which can precisely shave the edges of the existing cutout? OTOH, even with a 24" cooktop, you still might want to look into getting a portable induction cooker (PIC) and maybe also consider a electric griddle or fry pan, as well. While it seems to me that Delray33483's opinion on portable induction cookers (PICs) being a "PITA to use and not being as high-powered as you think" is true for many of the cheapest models, it is not true for all PICs. It seems to me that there are four main complaints about inexpensive PICs: (a) cheap ones have very small burners with induction fields that may only be 4 or 5 inches in diameter (not so good for larger pots and pans); (b) cheap electronics that offer only a few and very widely spaced heat settings that give poor control over any cooking other than boiling water; (c) they have very crude cycling of heat control (called "pulse width modulation" or PWM) which makes simmering difficult or impossible (i.e., at lower settings, cheaper PICs give a couple seconds of furious boiling alternating with a few seconds of absolute stillness); and (d) many folks find cheap units to be annoyingly noisy. There are better PICs without these problems, but they tend to be expensive. If you haven't researched PICs much, yet, you might want to check out [this gardenweb thread from a few years ago[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/portable-induction-cooktop-and-cookware-dsvw-vd~2324992), and have look at some of the blogs at CenturyLife.org which have a pretty realistic appraisal of PICs (maybe start here for those blogs.) There are still trade-offs with a good PIC, but they will be trade-offs rather than outright negatives. For example, going down from a 24" inch induction cooktop to a 15" unit (sometimes called a "domino"), you lose one of the smaller burners which might well be a 6 inch 1800 watt induction burner. That's pretty much what you get with a good PIC. If you chose, say, a Vollrath 59500 model, you would get a burner with 100 power settings which is finer control --- if and when you need it --- than you would get with a Wolf (10 power settings) or a Miele (17 burner power settings) 24" cooktop. You would get excellent PWM, good temperature control settings (an option not available on any 24" induction cooktop I currently know of), and timer control of the burner. AFAIK, the Miele 24" induction cooktop is the only 24" cooktop offering a burner timer control feature. That quality comes at a pretty hefty price -- at around $500, it pretty much eats up the savings of a 15" domino unit over a 24" cooktop. Whether and to what extent those trade-offs matter is very much YMMV, As for finding folks with a minimlaist cooktop and supplemental devices, I've mostly seen them in videos and blogs on tiny houses here in North America. I am specifically recalling a post here from several years ago where the poster (from Seattle, IIRC) decided to rent out their big house while downsizing themselves into the "in-law apartment" on their property. Sorry, I can't find that link --- I'm having trouble at the moment with google etc. insisting that I need to have thousands of ad$ for shopping instead of information. Might be my ISP jumping free of net neutrality. $%#@! There are even several Chowhounders who have converted entirely to portable induction cookers (abbreviated "PICs") as have the folks at Centurylife.org. The arrangement you describe is also something that is becoming more common in some of the fancier small homes on the other side of the Pacific in Japan and Hong Kong. I might also note that my Japanese and HK acquaintances with two burner cooktops all seem to have, in addition to a PIC, an array of stowable specialty countertop electrics such as rice cookers, electric pressure cookers, electric yakatori grills, breadmakers etc. Some friends from New Zealand also have paired their small cooktop with a Thermomix countertop appliance. The Thermomix seems to have developed a bit of a cult following as shown in this review.