On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 00:01:04 -0400, Aileen > wrote:


>I have had my Thermador for almost five years. I find that the spills
>burn onto the porcelain part and I can not find
>a product where I live that is abrasive enough to remove the greasey gunk.
>I am wondering if the nonsealed just require cleaning of the tray part
>on rollers..... no porcelain bits.
>I also was wondering if I recall correctly that non sealed burners
>result in higher BTUs.
>

I have an older (30+ years) open burner range. With spills
you will get a portion of the spill going down between the
burner and the stovetop. If you have a drip pan then cleanup
of the spill in the lower part is pretty easy. HOWEVER, not
all of that spill goes conveniently down into the drip pan. You
will still have parts of the spill on the surface of the cooktop
and that can get burned in if you don't clean it up quick
enough.

There is also the problem that at high flame settings the
flame will deposit a black, carbon film on the cooktop
if the flame is close enough to the surface of the cooktop.
This is extremely difficult to remove. This can happen with
open or sealed burners.

I would try a degreaser as has been suggested for
the gunk. You have to be careful with abrasives
with a porcelain coating as you will rub the
porcelain coating off and have bare metal. You
can also roughen up the surface of the porcelain
and make it harder and harder to clean in the
future.

Sealed burners are not inherently less powerful
than open burners as far as BTUs/HR go. Some
of the multi-ring sealed power burners from Fisher &
Paykel, Miele, Gaggenau, Windcrest, Elan etc. will
produce just as powerful flames as the "pro-line"
consumer open burner stoves. There are design
differences that make a difference for specific
applications. Single ring sealed burners with high
BTUs/HR tend to throw the flame out more than
the open burner multi-ring port models such as
Blue Star. The Blue Star might perform better for
concentrating the heat for wok cooking. Both
designs would work fine for boiling large pots of
water (pasta or seafood boils) or high temperature
sauteing in large pans. The multi-ring sealed
burners would concentrate the heat near the
center like the Blue Star and should work well
for wok cooking.

I'm leaning towards a cooktop with a multi-ring
sealed power burner and other single ring less
powerful burners myself for my upgrade.

Greg Muncill