We bought a house with a 4 year old 36 inch Bertazzoni stove in it. I am so frustrated. I have not bought bread in the past 3 years, baking my own bread in my trusted 23 years old Miele oven in the old house, which never caused me a headache. I bake a lot. 32 walnut and poppy seed rolls for Christmas on top of 17 different types of Christmas cookies. I tried to bake a few things in my "new" oven. Everything burned from the bottom. Today I baked my sourdough bread in a Dutch oven and I placed 2 wetted parchment papers on the bottom trying to solve the problem. Plus, I placed 6 ice cubes inside. Still - that horrible oven burned the bottom of my tested a zillion times sourdough bread. I am not happy.

alexr, pal, no call for the constipation. You brought up an excellent example - cooks making candy or sauces want to hold the contents of their pot at a certain fixed, (low or high) temperature. Well, wouldn't you say that it would matter whether they are heating a cup of sugar or a pint of it or a gallon sized pot of it? Or whether it is a cup, pint or gallon of milk instead? Wouldn't you say that the output POWER would need to be different depending on whether you're making a cup or a gallon or any item? Would you imagine that the same simmer would hold either pot at the same 130degrees - regardless whether you've got a cup there or a gallon? Wouldn't you expect to adjust the flame to produce the same constant temperature for the same two volumes of even the same commodity? Well, that is the VERY reason that to quote an output POWER measure makes so much more sense than a temperature number. 'Coz, you know, I could decide to be a perverse consumer and decide to make a single truffle for myself, decide to simmer (okay, scald, really) my thimble-sized quantity cream and then be livid that my "130degree simmer burner" BURNT my thimble of cream instead of gently scalding. Citing specs like this doesn't make sense. Sure, I'll grant that indoor ambient temperatures and the color of the walls do become secondary parameters, but frankly, the coveted "130deg simmer" doesn't even stand up to the grossest and most basic parameter: volume and specific heat capacity of the food i.e. how much and what sort of food is to be simmered. I promise you, you bring me the smallest (lowest power) flame and I can find a quantity of water small enough that I can boil it on it (boiling point of water being 212F >> 130deg). :-)

I have the 36" Bertazzoni cooktop. I'm very happy with it. I've never used 6 at a time, but have used 5. I originally planned to get a Dacor 5 burner, but found the Bertazzoni was about $500 cheaper. I have that huge Le Creuset dutch oven right now on the simmer burner. It does take up a lot of room, but I can use the burners around it with smaller pans - I couldn't use my seriously huge Le Creuset frying pan next to it, for example. I tend to move pots around from burner to burner: do the initial cooking on the front, then move a pot to the back to finish, while I work on the next thing, for example, and for that I really love the continuous grids. I have had no trouble stir-frying on the left hand burner, but I'm only cooking small quantities (if I cook a Chinese meal, I make lots of small dishes to share, not one huge one). I got a second simmer ring to use on the inner ring of the double burner, because I make a lot of sauces and often use both simmer burners. (I emailed Bertazzoni in Italy to ask about it and they sent it to me for free, which was great customer support!) I'm running it on propane and am very happy with the results. It's incredibly easy to clean - really, just a 'light duty' white scrubby sponge, water, and polish it off with a microfibre cloth. I like the knobs at the side, because I was concerned about pans of boiling water catching on them and scalding me. Over-reaction perhaps, but I'm pretty safety-minded. I know some people prefer all 6 rings to be equal in power, but it hasn't been an issue for me - in reality, most cooking is done at lower temperatures anyway, unless you fry a lot. That's about all I can think of right now, but if you have further questions post again and I'll try and address them. I really think, dollar for dollar, the Bertazzoni is a very good price with great performance. We cook everything from scratch, every day, so it's been well used. 2 years old now.

I don't have the Bertazzoni range, so have no idea about the oven, but I do have the cooktop, and am using LP. As far as boiling water is concerned, well, just like legal definitions, it all depends on what you mean by "reasonable". I'm able to get a pan of water boiling for pasta in what seems very good time to me, when compared with every previous stove I've used. Equally, the smaller burners bring water for steaming vegetables to the boil extremely swiftly. How much water are you needing to boil? It's a hard thing to discuss if you don't know how much water, and what time is 'reasonable'. Anyway, for me, it's certainly fast enough, faster than I'm accustomed to, and I'm very happy with it.