>>>"My name is Marcia btw not that it matters but with the line is the only way it would take it."And here I thought you were "Marc" from Iowa (IA). :>) Another thought on something thing that affect overbrowning, which is oven cycling. When temp drops below a certain point, the baking burner heats up until the temperature overshoots the set point. Then it shuts off until the temp falls low enough, at which point it comes back on again. On my late former stove, a GE Profile dual fuel, the swings were much wider during preheat. That is, the overshoot on the way up to a full preheat was much higher than after full preheating. On the way to a full preheat, the oven thermometers showed me that that the overshoot might be as much as 30F to 50F above and below the set point while the oven was preheating. However, after thirty or so minutes of preheating, the swing really settled down to around 20F or 30F (so, varying around 350F by going down to 340F or 335F and going up to about 360F). For at least the last decade, stoves have been well insulated so that many ovens hold heat pretty well once they have been fully preheated. On the subject of convection, here's a reason to consider trying out convection baking and roasting with your induction rnage. On my late GE Profile range, the temp settings tended to be very stable in a fully preheated oven when running convection. Assuming I had a relatively clean oven, of course. The third oven heating element (the one the rings the fan) helps maintain a set temp which the air flow distributes around the cavity. So, with the oven set to, say, 350F, and convection running, the oven thermometers showed me that a cookie sheet on the middle rack would stay within a few degrees of 350F. On my former GE Profile, I also found that preheating with convection bake took longer than preheating on standard bake, but the temperature was more stable when the pre-heat signal went off. So, you also might try that and see if makes any difference. This post was edited by JWVideo on Wed, Jun 19, 13 at 15:01

I do not have this unit and am not recalling seeing much about this 36" Viking model here in the last couple of years since this thread was active. You might have better luck attracting responses from current owners and users here if you started a thread of your own and put the model number in your thread title. As for using your large LC pans, I'm not sure I know what you are asking. Have you used induction before? If not, maybe you are not quite understanding how to ask the questions. Let me take a stab at what you might be asking. * Are you asking if the full size Viking induction cooktops like this one have the same problem recognizing LC pans that that the old Viking single-burner portable induction cooktop units (PICs) once had back in the previous decade? The answer to that is that the full size cooktops and the Viking induction ranges have never had that problem. The problem was limited to those old and long discontinued PIC models. * Or, are you asking if there will be a problem operating a burner with a pan larger than a particular induction hob space. Say, your LC pans have 12" diameter bases overtop the 9" square hob spaces of the Viking cooktop? The answer is that your LC pans will all work, but may intrude sufficiently into the adjoining hob spaces that the LC pans don't leave enough space for pans on the other three burners. For example, maybe you want to use a couple of 12" LC frypans --- one on the front right hob and another on the left front hob --- and then want to plant a large LC dutch oven on the middle hob in the back. So, how big are the pans you want to use at the same time on the other three burners? For that matter, how often do you figure you will be using all six burners at the same time and need to be running two or three 12" diameter (or larger) LC pans? Frankly, the best thing to do to find out how the cooktop will or will not work is to take your array of pans to a dealer and see if and how they all fit. If you can't find a showroom example, try using the dimensions shown on the installation instructions to draw a full scale layout with a sharpie or magic marker on a piece of newspaper. * Or, are you asking if a nine-inch square induction hob will evenly heat the entire base of a large LC pot or pan with, say, a 12" diameter (or larger) base. The answer is that you will have the same behavior with LC pans that you will have with any cast iron pan on any burner (gas, electric, or induction). IOW, no problem with braises, soups and stews, where you have liquid to even out the heat, but you will need lengthy pre-heating to get an even spread of heat across any cast-iron base when you want perfectly uniform heating as for searing or browning out to the edges of the base. This is a property of all cast iron, not just LC. If the VIking cooktop had some burners with larger diameter induction fields (large enough to encompass the entire base of your big LC pans) the cast iron would still heat unevenly. Preheating to evenness might take a bit less time with the larger burner, but it still will take quite a while. That's just the nature of cast iron cookware. FWIW, Cook's Illustrated has been recommending that you put cast iron pans in a hot oven for a half hour or longer to preheat CI skillets for stovetop searing like cooking steaks. Then you run the stovetop at lesser heat which is sufficient to maintian the searing temps for the cooking session. Again, the preheating and unevenness will be no big deal for tasks like braising, boiling water, deep fat frying, stocks, soups and stews with a lot of liquid. Probably not a problem, either, for making a very long simmered tomatoey ragu or long-cooking of beans. But where you will need workarounds will be for stir fries or browning where you need every square inch of base surface to be perfectly evenly heated for the meat or bacon or veggies or whatever that you want to brown. Again, you would need the same workarounds with any stove where the burners are not sized for large pans, whether gas or regular electric burners as well as induction.

Thank you all for great info! Wolf's cold spots in the middle is a little bummer. I wouldn't expect this kind of design on 5 way bridge cooktop. The elements suppose to be made by French company Jaeger Hiflux. Their Crescendo model is quite different from what I have ever seen in induction cooktops. Check this out.. http://www.jaeger-sas.com/#!induction-en/cl7w Anyway since Wolf has no flex in bridge mode then we might take another look into 36" GE Cafe model which was #3 on our list. It has only one no flex bridge mode, but it's much cheaper than Wolf or Miele. That model has many positive reviews including #1 on CR rating (99 out of 100). On both GE & Wolf we like simple, clean interface. GE is better with 17 vs 10 levels on Wolf. On GE minus side is power sharing (not quite sure how much problem is that in real use) and only 1 year warranty vs 3 year on Wolf. However much bigger problem on GE Cafe is SS color. My DH says that specific color is clashing with our choice of Silestone Kensho countertop (light gray). I don't see it as bad but we might loose it on that argument. No question the decision between Miele vs Wolf vs GE Cafe is giving us more headaches than any other appliance.

So, time to chime in here. I went with the Blue Star 36" induction cook top 2 years ago. Looks great, LOVED the knobs, worked fantastic... for about 18 months. I'll note that unlike their other products it only has a 1 year warranty. First, the two rightmost burners started indicating they were overheating when the central burner was in use (and the rightmost were not). I reset the system at the breaker per the manual and it rand great for three weeks with a hitch, then the central and right top burner cut out entirely. Three days later they came back, but wouldn't heat above level 7 (out of 10). I had (or so I thought) the good sense to get an extended warranty, but after getting a service guy out here the warranty company informs me it will cost more to fix than I paid in the first place, so they're going to cash me out. Blue Star may be good in other areas (no experience here), but based on my experience with this one, I don't think they have enough time making this product to reach their usual degree of reliability. Addendum: looks like Blue Star (when I bought it) had a narrower cut out (18") than anything currently on the market, including their own product. At least it looks like they're learning from past mistakes...