You just cured me of wanting a gas stove. I have a flat top stove with four burners, one is a small and large burner in one, 2 small and another large one. But the bonus is a small "warmer" burner also. I have now come to the understanding, it is what you were raised or cook with. I also have an induction burner, which is my favorite.

My gas stove has sealed burners. By the time the meal is over, the grids are cool enough to move so I can clean the top. I've had it for 16 years with nary a problem. I even boiled over a bechamel sauce once and had no problem cleaning up the resulting mess.

I use a pot holder to lift a warm grid and plonk it down onto the other side of the stove, clean that side, then replace the grid and move the other grid over and clean underneath if necessary.

I was raised on electric but came to use gas in my teens and much prefer it, so much so that when we were young and struggling we were willing to pay the landlord half the cost of installation of gas to run a gas stove in the previously electric kitchen of the house we were renting.

IMO electric gets a worse rap than it deserves. I was happy with smoothtop, but there‘s noticable differences in performance/quality between them. In my current house I’ve got gas, and my solution to your question is I deal with larger chunks and colorful spills on as needed basis, do a thorough cleaning about once a week. And there are a couple pans that hang out on the cooktop that may be moved strategically if I’m being lazy. It’s definitely more work than smooth electric.

My 20 year old GE gas stove has a glass cooktop under sealed burners. It is very easy to clean and keep clean. In doing advanced planning for potential stove replacement down the road, I’m disappointed that no one makes a stove with a glass cooktop anymore, referred to as gas-on-glass. They do make cooktops with gas-on-glass, as well as rangetops, but no stoves.

I absolutely hated the electric smooth glass top I had. I was thrilled to get my beautiful duel fuel kitchen aid stove with double ovens. I was in love! Unfortunately the flood took it from me. This house came with a gas cook top and electric double wall ovens. I have not had any problems with either of the gas ones. I never try to clean immediately after cooking. It is not difficult to clean. It has sealed burners and just a few sprays of cleaner and a wipe clean. My cleaning lady takes it all apart every other week and does a heavy cleaning but it is not very dirty. I hope I never have electric again! I have burned myself on a hot pot but not on the stove.

Curious what brand did you get? Doesn't it have sealed burners?

I also have sealed burners and find the stovetop very easy to clean. The stove in L.A. has a stainless steel top with black grates, and the one in Cathedral City has a black top, which is even more forgiving. The one in CC also has a fifth burner in the middle, and it came with a griddle that fits perfectly. I use the griddle mainly for pancakes and okonomiyaki, but also for tortillas.

My mother had an electric stovetop, and I hated having to cook on it - I've burned myself on electric cooktops but never on gas. I have a portable induction burner, but I use that only with my pressure cooker. I thought I might be interested in induction cooking, but found out that I am not. I guess I get some sort of primeval joy from seeing flames.

Induction. Fast and easy to clean. Nothing better!

I love my gas cooktop. By the time we have eaten dinner, the cast iron grates and/or the flat pan griddle are cool enough to handle. I don't find cleaning out the well all that difficult. The grates and flat griddle can go in the dishwasher if necessary. I rarely have anything boil over and grease splatter is kept at a minimum with lower temperatures. If I get a cloudy haze on the control panel I give a quick cleaning with Windex.

I was raised with electric stoves. I dislike them.

will you show us a picture of it or the name of it so we can see it There is a product that Dawn makes called Platinum foam that is supposed to work really well

We've had nothing but gas cooktops for the last 40 years and wouldn't have it any other way. When on vacation in a rented condo (like in Hawaii and also elsewhere) where all electric is what's prevalent, we suck it up and bear it but hate electric ranges.

For ovens, it makes less of a difference although gas ovens produce moist heat and electric ovens drier heat. For some things it makes a difference, for other things, it doesn't. We have both a gas and an electric oven in our kitchen so I know from experiences the differences we perceive.

Everyone has their own preferences, often much influenced by what they've become accustomed to using. I haven't tried an induction cooktop and may have the chance some day. The responsiveness of setting changes, like gas, might overcome my dislike of an electric cooktop which I consider unresponsive.

Lars, thanks for the suggestion of the induction top for canning. I dug out and purchased replacement seal's along with new gauges then someone cautioned me about canning on a glass top stove because of the vibrations. In looking on line at the information I decided not to. I can easily afford to replace a portable one if it would break. I could also afford a new stove but am torn between the dual setup raven mentions or an actual stove. Will need to have gas ran to my kitchen if I do.

Edited to ask how do you use a pressure canner on an induction burner since most are aluminum.

First of all, I use a splatter guard whenever I'm frying food. That helps deal with any grease flying around and landing on the stove top surface or in the burner pan. But there's always some clean up of the burner pans needed after cooking.

By the time I've eaten, then do the dishes, the cast iron grills are cool. That's when I begin my wiping down of stove surfaces, lift up the burner grills, and wipe the pans with the dampish dish towel (or whatever). Takes like five minutes. Unless you don't do it after each meal, then it will take longer to scrub the dried food bits off.

I love my gas stove. Like the others said by the time the meal is over the grates are cool. Depending on what you cooked it doesn't take long to set aside the grates and clean under them. I like a clean stove top so I clean it every meal.

The stove is a Frigidaire Gallery. I'm sure it has sealed burners -- don't all new gas stoves? It's a beautiful stove, but I'm just not in love like I was when we bought it. My old GE was a lot easier to clean and when you're not a natural cleaner, and I'm not, easy counts for a lot. I do appreciate the tips and thank everyone for the responses.

DH uses a spatter guard when he does the bacon, potatoes and eggs breakfast, but it doesn't seem to slow the grease down very much. I'll look for the Platinum foam stuff.

I will be cooking with gas for quite a while and may come to appreciate it more as time goes by.

@bengardening, have used Dawn for years; tried the Dawn platinum powethouse foam, am not at all impressed with performance and really dislike the airborne mist/scent. Have you used it?

Another vote for induction. Boil a big pot full of water for 10 cobs of corn. On my gas range, I would put the corn in and wait 10 minutes for the water to come back to a boil. Induction, drop the corn in and it's back to boiling within a minute. Smooth surface to clean and rarely a boil over, because if you see it rising, and touch MEDIUM, it stops boiling instantly. Will never have anything but induction.

But didn't you still have to wait until the electric coils cooled down before cleaning them? It doesn't take an hour for our grates to cool down.

Induction is hard to beat for ease of clean-up. We have gas and honestly don't find it a big deal to keep clean. We've had several gas cooktops over the years and prefer gas to electric. All of the previous ones had sealed burners but when we remodeled we went with a Bluestar range with open burners and absolutely love it. We fry bacon and DH uses his Wok for stir frying and then wipe up when we're done. If for some reason we have a boil over which happened last night when he was making spaetzle (he should have used a larger pot) - we wiped it up when we cleaned up after eating.

I will always miss my GE Americana double oven stove. One of the burners had a thermostatic control, ovens/broilers parts were a snap to clean all together in the larger oven. Sigh......

No i haven't used the Dawn Platinum. A lot of people recommend it for air fryers so I thought I would mention it.

I've had gas ranges for 45 years and never realized cleaning it was a problem. I'm sure you'll get plenty of good suggestions here.

If I want to get something wiped up immediately I use my silicone oven mitt to shift the grate over, or sometimes my tongs to just raise the grate up enough.

I do agree that washing the grates is more troublesome, but for the most part I just wipe them in place with a dish soapy sponge to get grease spatters off.

That "well" below the grates does keep wet spills from running all over or onto the floor - I like that. I remember having to lift the top of the electric stove to clean spills, and having to raise or remove the burners to clean under them.

Over all I prefer cooking with gas enough that dealing with the grates isn't a negative to me. I like that I can still cook during a power outage. Plus, I think the grates are attractive.

I've used gas and electric types at times over the years in various places. Both are cleanable and usable as the other for me. But I have found there is a learning curve when switching over. If used to using electric coil, switching to gas or if used to gas using sealed electric can be a bit of a boo at first.

Invest in a couple splatter covers for your pans for when you are frying stuff up.

If you aren't a clean it in the morning kind of person when the stove is cold to clean anyway... As wrap up to dinner time, if the stove space isn't occupied- toss those hot burner tops in the oven to sit. They keep the heat the longest. Then when you would have been cleaning your electric stove after dinner anyway, the range might be cool enough for the under cleaning.

I think the grates are attractive too. That's one reason I wanted the gas stove -- because I really like the way it looks. I guess I'll get used to it and then I probably wouldn't trade back for anything.

I'm wondering if the dissatisfaction and dislike isn't so much with the thing itself, but rather the discomfort and frustration of having to readjust and learn a new way of doing things?

I've also used both gas and electric and both have their pros and cons. I don't have any choice but electric in our home because there's no gas service here. You do get used to things, but you don't have to get attached to them if you choose not to.

Or dissatisfaction with the performance? In my case I was really looking forward to having gas for the first time in my adult life, but with the exception of quick response it’s been a downgrade in every way. It can’t simmer, bringing water to a boil takes forever, the ring of flame makes for uneven heat... none of which makes me happier cleaning the darned thing. I’m not dissing gas, fully aware that this is a function of my particular cooktop.

FOAS--Yes, no doubt it is your cooktop. I had a Kenmore sealed burner gas range which was a re-badged GE. It was horrible. The flame wasn't dispersed far enough so it was like cooking with a really bad electric skillet. Oven took forever to preheat.

But I have hated every last minute that I have had to cook on an electric stovetop. The worst was a Corning cooktop. When a control malfunctioned causing a burner to stay constantly on, I ripped that thing out of the countertop, hauled it to the driveway and busted it up with the largest sledgehammer that we owned.

Really. You don't know how strong you are until you get really, really PO'd! This was in the '80's. I replaced it with the cheapest Whirlpool open burner gas cooktop that I could find. Around a hundred bucks. It cooked wonderfully.

In a prior home, I had a Roper gas range. Nice range. Flame dispersed nicely (another open burner). Oven preheat time was good.

Then a used Tappan gas range. Cooked OK until the manifold developed a hole and started leaking gas even when all burners & oven were shut off. Intro to the era of cheap disposable cooking appliances. Replaced with the aforementioned horrible GE/ Kenmore.

Which brought me to 'Investment Time'. What was the closet thing to Mom's old Okeefe & Merit gas cooker, with a center griddle. Landed at a Wolf rangetop 10+ years ago. One of the last of Wolf's semi-open burner style. Yes, it could be more powerful--all 4 burners @ 15,000 BTU's. The griddle is a dream--very even heat. Bit of a bear to clean but I discovered 'Emeril' multi-surface cleaner. Cleans like the paste version of Bar Keeper's Friend on steriods. And doesn't separate w/ the solids settling in the bottom of the bottle like BKF does.

I got lucky w/ the Wolf rangetop. A local appliance store had one that was a customer return which I was able to purchase for a bit more than half price.

Emeril by Diversey

I bought 2 bottles of Emeril at a garage sale 4-5 years ago. Have used about 1/2 of the first bottle.

The problem w/ buying Emeril is that I see it offered only in case lots of 12 on-line. Since I gave the other of the 2 bottles to my son, some day I am going to have to try to find it in singles. Pro-cleaning supply house, maybe?

This is mine:

https://www.bbqguys.com/viking/professional-7-series-48-inch-8-burner-natural-gas-range-stainless-steel-vgr7488bss

The grates left off easily and I spray it with a cleaner to keep it shiny. Love it!