I'm confused when you say that Minnesota doesn't let you grill indoors in the winter. Is it really against code if you have a sufficiently powerful hood and make-up air?

I think its fair to say that the CC will out cook a thermadore due to open burners.

Fit and finish and look is a toss up / personal feelings.

$2000 saving up front is significant.

The dishwasher is worth no where near $1800 that's an imaginary price to entice you to buy the package.

The reason Thermador gives away appliances is because people don't buy new thermadore appliances without the give away.....If the range could stand on it's own they would never give you a free hood or dishwasher.

From a cooking perspective CC wins easy in my mind. from a package price Thermadore.

I completely recognize the culinarian has better burners, but the ovens (barring the rotisserie option and broiler) are much nicer on the Thermador. Just looking for someone who has cooked on both to chime in.

An important thing to consider is: "Are you willing to use large sized pots and pans on the Thermador? (See Nunya's post about his NXR).

Alto I do not have either the Thermador, Bluestar, or Capital Culinarian, I do have a DCS (Outside). It has huge open and powerful burners, but they are not the same style as the bluestar or the CC. The flames lick around the BIG pot or pan on all but the lowest settings, and even with the flame turned down, the edges of the pot/pan get much hotter than does the center, soooooo---I havta keeps stirring whatever is in the pot or pan or it will soon be charred towards the edge of the pan and raw in the center.

I am just using "El Cheapo" aluminum pans so a better pan "Might" help, but if you read the posts about open vs sealed burners, I think most sealed burners would perform similar to my DCS (Even thou it is open burner--just not a good open burner).

You certainly could live with that but I get spoiled by by Elux induction that is in the kitchen, I just set it and forget it, no need for constant stirring, constant monitoring etc etc. I suspect (except for speed), that the Capital culinarian burners would emulate my induction unit quite well (IE nice even heat all the way across the pot/pan).

Good luck with your pending decision, but were it me, and were I a "Gasser" I would be buying the CC from Trevor!!!

Gary

@trevor, you really should come clean in your post and mention that you sell the CC and not the Thermador.

The differences between open and sealed burners is nominal.
You should also mention that Capital 25000BTU burners are rated at approx 30-31% efficiency.

It's not how big the burners are or open or sealed... it's how well they heat the pans

I added the Appliance Advisors, Peoples Cooktop Test, link for additional data.

Here is a link that might be useful: Peoples Cooktop Test

1) Yes, I know trevor sells Culinarians.
2) Can't go induction, or I'd have to scrap my copper pots, and they are my own, my preecciousss.
I've been to that site as well. The latest Thermador burners are not tested. Five are up to 18K BTU, with the sixth at 22K BTU.
I have one smallish pot, but the rest are reasonably big. None of my dealers in the twin cities have a Live version of the Thermador or Culinarian, so no tests for me. Would, then, I miss whichever choice I didn't get, not likely. I do admit though, I like to put chars on things like meat, so a gas grill and a ceramic broiler have two big points in my book. If they would just make the Culi with an electric coil at the base of the oven and in the convection fan, improve the racks, and do something useful with the little oven I'd be happier....

I am sure everyone knows what I sell. What I sell does not detract from the fact that open burners outperform sealed burners. The difference between open and sealed burners is significant nothing nominal about it. We tested a wolf range with caps on and caps off using same pan same water side by side at the same time, the burner with caps off boiled water over 23% fast..... that is significant

You are right it is not how big the burners are but how the burner delivers heat to the CENTER of the pan, so the base of the pan gets evenly hot. Sealed burner send vast majority of the heat to the outside of the pan, open burners send the heat to the center of the pan.

The peoples test shows the CC running at 36.44 efficiency for the 23k btu burner the 25k btu burner is a sealed unit.

When you look at the peoples test you can results for the exact same range performing differently due to many varying factors, in my mind a pointless test with to many variants not taken into account.

Posted by trevorlawson
I think its fair to say that the CC will out cook a thermadore due to open burners.

Fair to say based on what? Please describe what this means. The high end is 22K BTUs-pretty close to Capital. This is the rating for the heat output, nothing to do with open or closed. The low end is 375 BTUs. We don't know what Capital has for that.

I am sure everyone knows what I sell. What I sell does not detract from the fact that open burners outperform sealed burners. The difference between open and sealed burners is significant nothing nominal about it. We tested a wolf range with caps on and caps off using same pan same water side by side at the same time, the burner with caps off boiled water over 23% fast..... that is significant

Here is the video. Outperform would be a mischaracterization of this "test". I see performance as more multidimensional than putting the most heat in the center of a pan. If you had a wider pan, or changed the metal it was made of, or what you are cooking, your results would be different. This falls under the category of showmanship rather than anything scientific. How can you say this-"the burner with caps off boiled water over 23% fast."without any supporting data?

You are right it is not how big the burners are but how the burner delivers heat to the CENTER of the pan, so the base of the pan gets evenly hot. Sealed burner send vast majority of the heat to the outside of the pan, open burners send the heat to the center of the pan.

Please explain using the principals of heat transfer how delivering heat to the center of a pan is allowing the base of the pan to get evenly hot. If you have a ring of heat on the bottom of the pan, heat will travel in both directions from that ring to heat the pan. The center will receive heat from more directions and heat quicker, until it comes to equilibrium, than the outside so it is optimum to have a ring with the maximum heat more towards the outside of the pan than the inside. It is much harder to get heat to the part of the pan outside of the ring. A sealed ring burner flame pattern is only slightly wider than an open ring burner, a little more if you have it wide open. If you use a pan with reasonably good heat transfer like copper or aluminum, the burner shape doesn't really matter as much, but I wouldn't want the heat in the middle of the pan. The only way I would see heat in the middle of a pan as a benefit is if I were using a very small pan or a wok. I use everything from a 7 inch pan to make caramel with no stirring to a 14 inch aluminum pan on my sealed burners. For any pan less than 7 inches, I have a "small pan burner" I can make fried potatoes in that 14 inch pan with even color all the way across. I use cast iron if I need a lot of heat as in searing meat.

So for the moment, I'm planning to have the best of both worlds. I've found a way, and a deal, to get an open burner cooktop like the capital, and wall units of the thermador PRO 30 inch with rotisserie, and the Thermador steam oven wall unit. I can get the three of these for the same price as the 48 inch capital range. This gives me the advantages of the electric oven, wall placement, retains the rotisserie feature, and the usefulness of the steam/convection oven. The downsides are no ceramic broiler and a smaller primary oven.
Of course now that I'm down to the cooktop alone in considering Capital, I'm weighing BlueStar back in, but there are enough threads here to not beat that horse again.
Thanks for your help!