You can certainly put any range you want under that hood. Yes, a deeper hood with a bigger capture area would be ideal but with a 600 CFM hood you'll capture most of the stuff. My 600 CFM hood over my DCS range is only 19" deep - I didn't know better at the time but I was also limited by a 6" duct. It captures most of the stuff - I do get some grease on the outer front of the hood but it's no big deal to clean it off - I don't get any grease elsewhere in the kitchen. If you want the Bluestar, by all means go for it.

Test it yourself turn on the 2 front burners to get your 22k BTU heat output and see how your current hood handles it. You might need to pull your stove out a little to make it 27 inches deep. Just call it kitchen research an development. Get some incense (watch its smoke) to watch the heat flow pattern. You might even tie a string to the outside of the hood and run it like a clothesline (or anchor to the hood with a magnet) to the opposite wall. Hang a couple of thermometers on it to test the air temp near the hood that itÂs not catching. I know it sounds stupid but some of the best test results are gathered this way. This way you will know exactly how your hood will perform. I did R&D flight testing on airplanes I done a lot stranger things for test than this .

The quantity of BTUs in your burners is not the limiting factor -- rather, it's how you use them. A 22K burner gives you the option of cooking a high-heat, high-smoke stir-fry, but whether you actually do this, and how frequently, is up to you. I have a 24 inch deep 600 CFM VAH over my BlueStar; occasionally I do overwhelm it with a high-heat stir-fry, to the point where it only captures about 90% of the smoke, but as the period of high-heat cooking is only a few minutes, it's something I can live with. Of course, if I were stir-frying all day long every day, it would be unacceptable.

In your case, let's suppose the 21 inch deep hood captures only 80% of the smoke for that same stir-fry meal. Maybe you just live with it, or choose to cook that meal less often. Even if you decide you simply can't stand any smoke at all, there's still plenty of ways you can benefit from a 22K burner that don't generate overwhelming smoke. I use my 22K burner on full for at least part of just about every meal I cook -- and most of the time I never need to turn my hood past the lowest setting.

In summary, I would say go for the 22K BlueStar. The worst thing that can happen is that you may choose to limit the amount of high-smoke cooking you do -- or just do it anyway and live with a bit of smoke when you do.

Agree with the folks above. I have a 36" Bluestar with a 600 CFM Ventahood liner in a wood outer. Because of the wood, I mounted it higher (36") than one is supposed to do (since Bluestar says not to have "incendiary" materials closer than 36" above the cooktop). It doesn't capture all of the smoke from frying or stirfrying, but if I'm going to do that, I crack a window too, and we're fine. As noted above, you don't do that stuff for too long a time, so the smoke doesn't build up. I think the Ventahood would be a lot more effecient if it were mounted lower, and its height is the main reason I get smoke escaping. I'd get the Bluestar--it sounds like you love to cook, and if so, you'll love the Bluestar

When our hood was installed in our island, we had no choice but to offset it back so it almost has no coverage for the front burner of our Viking. Yet that is where we cook everything. So sure, there is some grease build up on other things that wouldn't occur otherwise. But as others have said, it really is up to you how you use it. You can always turn down the 22K burner, but can't turn up the 15K ones :).

just as an FYI, i recently tried to order the bluestar that comes with the 18K burners and was informed that its discontinued, so unless you find one that in stock somewhere, you're going to have to get the 22K burners.

i was "settling" for the 18K burners as a cost consideration, so ....darn!...had to go with those 22k's.

but, i did have the cooktop set up to my specs. the ranges come standard with the 22k's both up front, but i opted to move one to the back and keep the 15k up front. this was done partly as a precaution so as not to overwhelm my hood (VAH 600CFM 36"w x 24"d) and partly due to how i tend to cook.

oh, and a quick question for houscrzy;

i am soon going to be installing a setup similar to what you've described--bluestar 30" with 22K's, VAH 36"x24" 600cfm liner with wood hood, and I'm struggling with the decision of how high to mount the hood.

if you had it to do over, would you mount your hood lower? i know they say 36" clearance for wood, but would a few inches really make the difference, do you think? obviously, i don't want to damage my custom wood hood, but i also want that extra capture that a 33" distance would give me.

your feedback will be much appreciated!

Wow I really appreciate all the feedback from all you posters. It's good to know that I don't have to dismiss the Bluestar as an option and now you're telling me that I can even go to the 22K model. I never heard that they were discontinuing the 18K model so I'll have to make up my mind fast. I forgot to mention that my Ventahood was installed at only 24" above the cooktop so hopefully that's an okay height to work effeciently at with higher output burners. I'll have to call Ventahood to verify and hope they don't give me a different answer than what I want to hear.

Yes I do love to cook and have been researching new ranges for the longest of time. I'm drawn to the Bluestar due to the star shaped burners which will hopefully resolve my number 1 pet peeve concerning my current range- slow heat recovery once the food goes into a hot pan. I do a fair amount of stir frying and know that the wok flavour I'd like would be more achievable with the 22K. However, I also have the capabilities to do amazing high heat wokking and grilling on my Big Green Egg outside so I wonder if having 22K is overkill and that maybe 15-18K is enough?

Judy, you will love having the 22K burner. Not overkill at all.

As they say, everything is relative. Relative to our ancient and tiny burners on the contractor grade gas cooktop, our Viking is king! But it simply does not hold a candle to 100K+ BTU wok burners used in restaurants. The meet has a nice sizzle when first put in but then quickly cools, water/juices come out and soon, you are boiling, not flash cooking with a wok. So you compensate by putting a quarter of a the meet at a time in there. But that takes time, and you may start burning the nice little pieces stock to the pan from the first batch.

Hence the reason we are going to get Bluestar for our vacation/retirement house we are modeling now. If they made 30K BUT burners, I would be buying that one instead :). But they don't.

It is really silly that safety/liability considerations lead to these devices not putting out proper heat.

Same is true of the wall oven. We are getting a massive wood burning Pizza oven because the home ovens stop at 500 degrees, not 600-800 you really need. They of course heat up to 900 degrees to self clean but you can't cook in them. Why, oh why....

Edlakin--I'm not sure of the answer to your question. I figured that a little smoke and grease I could deal with, but I really didn't want to damage the wood, and so I went that high. My contractor wasn't terribly concerned about it and would have put it at 30" if I had wanted it there. But then he hadn't ever installed a Bluestar before (I put up with a lot of jokes from the contractor and the architect about the incinerating of food I was going to do). I imagine you could put it lower--my hood doesn't get the least bit hot from the range. I definitely don't have perfect venting. I came from a kitchen with a horrible hood that did nothing, so this is much better than that, but if you are used to no escape of smoke, this set up won't be perfect. I finally cleaned the hood the other day (oops, need to do that more often!) and it was full of grease, so it's catching something! Oh, and I really only feel the need for the hood if I'm stirfrying or searing meat at high heat (both of which I now do a lot more since I have a range that actually does it well)!

great! that pretty much answers my question. thanks for your response.

amirm - Let's say for a minute that the reason you're getting that massive wood oven is "really" because you can't get your kitchen oven up to 600-800 degrees for pizza. In that case, let me save you some money: Since you find safety concerns silly, why don't you remove or disable the locking feature on your oven, set it to clean, when it hits around 600 degrees throw your pizza in. The pizza will be done before it hits 800.

And regarding wok cooking - if you want 30k why not buy a range with a 30k burner on it like Capital? Or a dedicated wok burner? Better yet, save yourself thousands and go to Amazon and buy an outdoor wok burner that'll put out 65k. They have other outdoor burners that will put out up to 185k, but will need a little customization to hold a wok. Either way, you'd be spending under $100.

Yes, there are many alternative ways of getting what you want in your cooking arsenal to satisfy your hunger urges all at different price points. Whether it be an outdoor wok burner (which by the way my Dad has and loves) or a dedicated indoor one, in the end if you are happy with your choice, that's all that matters.

Incidently, another option besides the massive wood oven, is to get a Big Green Egg like I previously mentioned. It's a very versatile cooking machine that I use year round. Besides grilling, its a smoker and convection oven too. Temperatures can reach stable oven temperatures of 800 degrees and even more. Pizzas and breads come out with that wood burning oven taste and my turkeys and roasts are so moist and flavourful. That's why it's very hard for me to justify spending the money on a pro model range when all I really want are better burners.

Fenwroth, believe me, I have been through all of those options :). Pizzamaking forums are full of people defeating safety features on ovens trying to get the temp high. While that kind of works, the dynamics of a home oven still don't match the neopolitan cooking. So while it would be good to not have to fire up the wood oven for a quick meal by using higher temp, I would have probably still gone for the wood oven.

As to using the grill outside, that is what I am going to do for our primary house. But in Seattle area where I live, it rains 6+ months. And for making Pizza, it is more convenient to do it in the kitchen as opposed to carrying things back and forth. So in the new kitchen we are opting to put the wood oven.

As to Capital, yes, we are looking at that also in addition to bluestar. So far, I am concerned about the sealed burners but have not done enough research to know if it will really bother us. Also, their 30K wok burner takes 24-inches which pushes us to get a 60 inch unit to have a griddle which is larger than what we were planning for. We may still go for it as the appeal of 30K is high in our eyes :). But I am not quite there yet.

I'm somewhat confused by this posting. I am getting the 36" AG Blue Star, and thought, via past research, that the minimum cfm in a hood I should be considering is 1200. Seems like this may be overkill? 900 would be enough? 600, even?

Most people don't create smoke on two burners let alone all four. So I see no problem with going lower than the rule folks tell you. In our cooking, there is usually only one burner going full blast, the others gently do their work so need little ventilation.

venice_2008 - with six burners you'll most likely be fine with a 600 CFM hood - with a grill you'rd need more. If you go above 600 CFM you'll need to look into the issue of makeup air which can be very costly.

New reader here with what might be a silly question: I live in a NYC apartment with a good sized kitchen and am about to buy a 36" 6 burner Blue Star. Is it really totally necessary to have a ventilation hood at all considering that I don't do a lot of heavy-duty frying or wok cooking? Is it the heat or the smoke or the poisonous gasses created that makes the hood so necessary? Thanks much!

yes, imo, it's totally necessary. from a safety standpoint, from a cleanliness standpoint, and from an air quality standpoint.

it's the smoke (and even if you don't do much high-intensity cooking, you will generate smoke), it's the heat, it's also the grease, the steam, and the moisture. poisonous gasses, not so much. they're a potential issue, but if your oven is working correctly, you won't have any.

also, depending on your buildings rules and such, it might be totally necessary if you want to be in compliance with any bylaws you might have and/or city code.

Actually, many NYC apartments/condos don't allow venting outside. If that's the case, you should consider a recirculating hood - many NYC people use them. By the way, it's the heat, smoke and grease you need to worry about - a properly functioning gas range won't produce any poisonous gasses.