I find that sometimes it is better to simmer on the 22k or 15k Btu Bluestar burners, a simmer is relative to the size of the pan or the amount of food in that pan. In our cooking school we find that a large pan of soup or stew simmers better on one of the larger burner. While the so called simmer burner on the Bluestar is better for a smaller pan of sauce you want to simmer or a smaller pan of soup you want to heat up fast. When using the larger 22k or 15k btu burner you find the even heat distribution to the base of the pan is better for heating or simmering. As for the grill while i have nothing to offer you on the Monogram Grill I would suggest you look at the video's on the website linked below. you will see the Bluestar Grill in action and also how easy it is to clean PROVIDED you take the correct precautions. Also in the videos you may gain get a better understanding of what i am trying to say about simmering on a Bluestar range using the larger burners once you see the burners up close on full power and on simmer. Here is a link that might be useful: Eurostoves / Bluestar Videos

I'm finally getting around to updating this post. The service guy came with the proper screwdriver and adjusted all by one of my simmers down to the lowest possible setting without having the burner blow out and start clicking to reignite. I originally thought that this adjustment affected my HI setting, making it slightly lower, so I asked him to leave one rear burner unadjusted to be used for rapid boiling of large pots of water. My Capital contact called back to ensure that the adjustment had been made and he spent a lot of time with me on the phone while I checked the burners and the control knob, etc. and now I understand that the screw that adjusts the simmer ONLY controls the simmer and it is impossible for it to affect the flow of gas at the hi setting. I don't remember exactly what he said, but apparently there are seperate valves for different settings and the screw behind the knob only adjusts the simmer. I've also learned that by design, the entire knob is not meant to control the flame height; only about 1/2 of the knob is able to control the flame and the low half has no impact on the flame height and is not supposed to. I think that marking the knob as if it has an effect is silly, since the mid-point SHOULD be a visual clue that it is your medium flame and not your simmer flame, but the bottom line is that you have to stoop down to check flame height if you want a medium flame and can not rely on the knob markings except for Ignite, HI and LOW (low flame will be achieved way before the low mark on the knob, but it sill still be Low so it doesn't matter.) Now, about the grates and tipping. Capital has confirmed that pots can tip and they are trying to redesign the grates to solve this potential safety issue, of which they were unaware until I complained of my experience. Either I'm the only one who this has happened to (and it will happen every time I cook with my smaller diameter pots unless I align the handle with a long support), or I'm the only one who bothered to call about it. It turns out that the fix is not as simple as one might hope. If you have a Capital rangetop, you can see that where the longer supports approach the burner cover, that the holes for the gas are of much smaller diameter. This is to prevent the supports from getting too hot when the burner is set to the Highest setting, and becoming damaged and ultimately rusting. All the other gas holes are much larger holes, and this is because there are no grate supports close. So, they can't simply have 4 more supports come closer to the center without considering the extreme extra heat that those supports would get, and still have the 19K BTU at HI that they want to offer. Bottom line, they are working on it and I'm confident they will find a solution before too many months and I will be able to have safer grates! While I was not entirely happy with my few months of slight buyer's remorse, I am very impressed with the ultimate response I finally got from Capital, especially with the fact that they are addressing the grate issue which I think it HUGE! Do I wish I had a different rangetop? Not anymore, because no one else offered an 8 burner option and my issues are either resolved as much as possible or are being worked on.

I'm deciding between a cooktop and rangetop. 36 inch. 5 tops for the cooktop (with the center being large) and 6 for the rangetop. Does anyone have either and what do you think? Are they easy to clean? Do you have any pics? Thanks

Trevor - I'm hoping you can help us determine if Capital has made any important updates to their ranges in the past 4 years. The reason for asking is that we just moved into a new custom house where we had the builder install a 48" Capital Culinarian Self/Clean Range, Model-CGSR484BG for which we paid over $11K. Unfortunately, in a few short days, we managed to break the oven latch and when we called Capital to arrange a fix, we learned our range was built in 2011. This came to us as a shock as we would have expected to get a 2015 range. I've read other threads where you commented that the simmer issues have been resolved in the newer models. Do you know when that fix was put in place? Have there been other major issues that were resolved in the current models? We're trying to get answers from our builder, who has put us in contact with their appliance distributor, but I'd like to get your independent comment if I may, as I'm sure they have an invested interest to convince us our range is identical to later models. The Capital representative also downplayed the years differential. Any feedback you can give us is much appreciated.