LOVE our double griddle on our BS 48" rangetop. DS wanted it the most, he is the breakfast king. He will whip out pancakes for the kids on school days, he says in less than 15 minutes. He cleans it right away, when you get the hang of it it goes quick. He does bacon on it all the time, usually before the pancakes (not on school days, bacon takes a while). We don't use it for scrambled eggs, like those better in the pan but bet fried would be good. We've used it a few times for chicken but got a wok and are having too much fun with that to experiment with meat on the griddle. We had a double burner griddle pan before and it wasn't near the same. I disagree with the grill fans. I have a Modernaire vent liner with in line fan and really like it. Even with that, I can't imagine grilling in the house, too much grease, smoke and stink for me, I'd rather send DH outside with it. Lots of that we could do on the griddle anyway if inclined. I do think it depends on your cooking style. Ours has changed since the redo, I'm so happy to report that DH is participating much more, did I say that I love our wok? If you are into big breakfasts, fajitas, grilled cheese, etc, you could get more use out of a griddle.

That $300 four-burner griddle from Webstaurant is only described as "steel." That means it probably is carbon steel (CS) rather than stainless steel (SS). Do you really want a stainless steel griddle, anyway? Seems to me that a stainless griddle would be for looks rather than use. I would think a stainless steel griddle would be undesireable from a cooking perspective. The Webstaurant griddle is listed as 7 gauge metal. IIRC, that's only about 1/8 or 3/16 inches thick. A stainless plate that thin is ikely to heat very unevenly. Remember why a lot of stainless pans have at least a "clad" base which includes aluminum or copper for heat dispersion? From a cooking perspective, a CS griddle would be much more useful that an SS one. CS works like cast iron (CI) except that it can be made thinner and thus not so heavy as CI. (CI needs to be thicker to keep it from breaking). Once seasoned (which is pretty quick), CS surfaces develop a near non-stick surface just as CI does. Not only is that good for the morning pancakes etc., but it means you can use them with more acidic foods than you would with aluminum. (Don't use wine or vinegar to deglaze though; they contain tannins (unlike, say, tomatoes) and those react with the metal to give a sour metallic taste.) Like cast iron, CS pans have good heat retention abilities, which means they need to be pre-heated longer than an aluminum griddle. Over time, of course, CS is going to look a lot less pretty than stainless. If you've seem the big griddles in a restaurant, you've seen what a well seasoned CS plate will look like. But even if it is CS, I would still recommend against the $300 Webstaurant griddle . It is listed as 27" inches deep. This is fine for true commercial stoves which are deeper than residential stoves. But, with a residential stove like that 36" Icon, that griddle's front lip will either be sitting on the burner controls or will ovehang them. It will get hot and that will make it awkward to work the burner controls. That 4-burner unit also will be awkward to move, clean, and store in a home kitchen. In my own kitchen, I don't know where I would put something that big when not using it. And, how do you pan on cleaning something that big, too? The Chef King griddles that Wekick mentions are a better choice for an occasional griddle. Note that they are carbon steel (CS) rather than cast aluminum. The Chef Kings do have loop handles which help a lot in moving them, so they would be less awkward to handle that the Webstauraunt unit. I would still recommend the two-burner spanning unit over the 4 burner spanning unit. A two burner Chef King unit will be 14 x 23 and weigh 16 to 17 pounds and cost $55 to $80.. A four burner unit will be 23 x 23 unit and weigh something like 38 pounds and cost between $150 and $200 depending on where you buy it and how much you pay for shipping. While the 4 burner Chef King unit will be only half the price of that Webstaurant model, it will only be slight less awkward to manuver, clean and store than that Webstaurant unit. Will you be doing large scale breakfast or griddle production often enough to warrant having such a big griddle? Personally, if I were planning on frequent production use, I would be much more inclined to get a pair of the 14x23 units and just deploy them as needed. For finding Chef Kings, besides the "Rocky Mountain" site that wekick cited, there are others. You could check out the Dvorson's site and Amazon whose prices are a bit lower. Nuntbiz1 has reported that Amazon recently has been selling the Chef King 14x23 for under $60. I have no experience with the aluminum Royal RoyGrid 23 that Wecick linked to. They certainly are a lot lighter than the Chef Kings. The 15x23 unit is only about 5 or 6 pounds compared to the 16 for the comparable Chef King. But, my concern with that Royal is the 7 gauge aluminum specification. Again, IIRC, that is between 1/8" and 3/16" thick. To me, that doesn't really seem thick enough, though I may be wrong. I once used somebody else's similarly thin two-burner aluminum griddle. I don't recall the brand or the exact thickness, but my recollection is that it was only about 1/8" thick. My impression was that it had hot spots over the burners and cooler areas between them even after considerable pre-heating. Pancakes in between the burners did not cook as quickly or brown as evenly. Electric griddles, like Broil Kings, can get away with that kind of wide and thin aluminum because their heating elements extend continuously and go under more of the plate. You don't get as even a spread with thin metal over discreet gas burners. (Seems to me that Cooks Illustrated made that finding in some testing they did about ten years ago, but I cannot find the link at the moment.) Anyway, the Royal Griddle might be just fine. I don't know. Before I bought one, I would really want to look for good reviews and would be leery of buying one without them. As for the the griddle plate that comes with that 36" Icon stove, maybe somebody here has one of the Icons and will chime in if we get enough postings here to attract attention. Unfortunately, I have no first hand knowledge of the Icon's griddle but I would bet that it is aluminum and non-stick simply because that is the kind of approach most major brands take. When I was stove shopping last year, I looked at a couple of GE stoves (Cafe and Profile) that came with griddles. GE's griddles had a black non-stick coating on the cooking surface, were about 1/4" inch thick, and seemed to be cast aluminum. I However, they were designed specifically for GE's elongated center griddle burner (found on its Profile and Cafe stoves). They were sort of oval shaped, something that seems to have been intended to mimic the kind of heating dispersion you get with electric griddles like the Broil Kings. Reviews on them have been mixed. Some folks like them, some think they are useless. They are small, too, which limits their usefulness for production cooking. This post was edited by JWVideo on Thu, Mar 28, 13 at 13:47

I have a couple griddle overlays on six burners and am very happy with that. I do from time use all my burners. I would look at the properties of the metals and see what would fit the way you cook. I like that with the add on you could change the griddle if you wanted to use the different metals with different properties. Some differences in the built in and add on-- The built in may be thicker than the add on but you would have to ask as they may very brand to brand. The built in is often made of steel. Because steel has poor heat transfer qualities, this will take longer to heat and not be as nimble if you want to change the temperature of the cooking surface. It will be more subject to hot spots. If it is thicker, it will take even longer and be take longer to change temp. It will hold much more heat for searing and retain heat longer though. Most have a surface that will season over time and become non stick like a cast iron skillet. I think Thermador has some other finish on theirs. Some of the overlay griddles are a little bigger as wide as 15 inches. There are also some ranges that come with an add on griddle specific to that range that fits and seats a little better than the regular add ons. With add ons, you would have your choice of metals, usually between steel, cast iron, porcelain covered cast iron, nonstick aluminum and uncoated aluminum. Steel and cast iron are poor conductors of heat so would behave as described above. Some people like that there tends to be areas that are different temperatures because they can use it to their advantage. These will both take a seasoning fairly easily. For being add ons, they are very heavy to move around. The porcelain covered cast iron will not really take a seasoning very well. Aluminum griddles have excellent heat transfer so heat very evenly throughout and are quicker to respond to changes in heat. They do not hold as much heat though. Aluminum is also much lighter weight if you have to move it. Bare aluminum will take a seasoning but require a little more time to develop. Some like the nonstick griddles but I always think of them as disposable eventually. Here is a link that might be useful: materials of cookware

Does anybody have or has anybody used one? I didn't have room for a larger range without loosing counter or cabinet space, so I went with the 30" Capital Culinarian. I would have really liked at least a griddle, and honnestly have never grilled indoors. I grill outside even in January in Minnesota. however this looks like it might be the slick ticket. I looks pretty much like a commercial unit and would completly cover 2 burners. My only concern is how thin the griddle is, only 10 ga. (.134") I did find a Crown Verity CV-MC12 that is 7 ga. (.179") but is only a griddle. I guess I could always weld a plate to the bottom of the CCI unit if it proves to be too thin, but that may reduce the effectivity of the grille, or would the grille suck as its not over a direct flame any way.