wekick, Thanks for your post. I'm sincerely glad you haven't had the issues I noted with the Wolf range. How long have you owned your Wolf? Wondering if it's only an issue with the recent Wolfs (Wolves?). Look at this link to a video of a paper test. Is this inaccurate?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGyugwvncFA&feature=related Interested to know if you found different results. Most shocking to me is the heat pattern. As for Wok cooking, I have a fairly powerful outdoor Wok burner 137K BTU but can't really accomplish that in my kitchen (probably unsafe and illegal). I live in northern Vermont and "wokking" outside isn't pleasant in the sub-zero weather we often get here. Also don't want a separate wok-only venting system and don't want to void my fire-insurance policy. Many of the dedicated built-in wok burners i've seen suitable for the home are actually rated around or even lower than 23K BTU and the better ones aren't much more than 30K BTU. Wolf's dedicated wok burner, for example, is only around 22K btu. I found the 23K Culinarian burners to do a fairly admirable job. In my experience, it's not just the BTUs that matter for successful wok cooking, but heat/flame pattern is equally important. I found the Culinarian burner flame pattern to be extremely Wok-friendly. There's an ongoing debate as to whether gas or electric is better for pastry baking (IMHO it depends what you're baking) but there's not much debate that gas is generally preferred for cooking/roasting meats/veggies and even bread which is more my bag. Depends upon preference, as you noted. Also I didn't mind the lack of rolling racks on the Wolf, but the Wolf range I tried didn't accommodate full-sized commercial sheet pans. Oven seemed a bit cramped. I also considered the Bluestar and still very much like the cast iron tops on them. The service record, however, concerns me. There also apparently remains major problems with door hinges, failing igniters, etc. I've considered an "additional" induction burner for my new kitchen, but would never replace open-flame cooking with induction. It is incredibly efficient but somehow lacks soul. Call me old fashioned or romantic or whatever, but I derive great joy from cooking and have never found cooking over electric, ceramic, or even induction to be as dynamic or satisfying. I won't even consider a sealed burner. This may be why i'm smitten with the Culinarian. It has the feel of a true commercial, open burner range, and nearly the power of one. I hope you don't take my post as in any way diminishing your choice. As you say, it's all personal preference and, having not yet placed my order for our 48" inch Culinarian, I'm open to being convinced to go another route if my experiences were anomalies that can be demonstrated. Continued satisfaction and happy cooking!

Went to the showroom in Newport Beach - thanks for the tips on the phone numbers! Well worth the trip, totally made my decision easy. The Capital looks so much more refined than the Blue Star. The Blue Star was top of my list but it looks so industrial that I just couldn't put it in my kitchen. I thought I wanted a self-clean but after looking at both, I liked the manual much better. The shelves in the manual slide in and out much better than the shelves on rollers in the self-clean version. The rollers seemed to stick on the self-clean displays and the rotisserie is a beast! I'm sure if I was really into rotisserie cooking, it would be great but it looks like you could spear an entire turkey on that thing! Sam was super accomodating and made everything super easy - I ordered my 36 Culinarian the next morning and cannot wait for it to arrive . . .

The drip tray rails need to be placed properly in order to hold the grates securely. They should be oriented properly and cover the "gap." Without the grates in place they look slightly "tilted" but once the grates are seated they level out and hold the grates very securely (no rocking). I imagine you've already tried all of this, but you never know.... We sometimes overlook the simplest things. It's happened to me a few embarrassing times with computer-related issues where I try all kinds of complicated fixes when a simple "reboot" ultimately resolved the problem. I suspect that to some extent "service" depends upon the quality of the contracted repair outfit in your area. We are lucky that ours happened to be outstanding. Hope you get this resolved soon and can enjoy the CC as much as I do. Cheers, BFF

I see it this way: there's a reason every other manufacturer has different burners with different max and min BTU ratings (or they only go to 16 or 17k BTUs)it's very, very difficult (some may argue impossible) for one burner to span nearly 23k BTUs and operate optimally at full on and simmer. Full on is the easy part but when it's on simmer there's not enough gas to support all the ports and it clicks (hence the sheet metal disk add-on) or flickers unevenly. The burner video on Eurostove's dedicated Culinarian website showing the burner on simmer has different ports going out and reigniting constantly. Everyone's might not be clicking but are everyone's ports (holes) all lit on simmer? Is the pattern uniform and consistent or flickering? Does the flame go out if you quickly go from high to low? Seems like they're doing retrofits and tweaks to keep the ports near the igniter lit so people don't complain. I doubt any change to the actual casted burner design has been made, just changes after the fact, sheetmetal add ons, drilling ports and messing with simmer settings. That's why I said maybe it wasn't quite ready for market.