Do you have a coil stove now?

Cleaning is different with a smooth top, and I have had three different ones over the last twenty years, but they have all been about the same. I have one now and as with all of them, do baby it so it looks good. That said, I cook all the time ( multi/daily) and find it much, much easier than coil tops to clean although it must be cleaned more often.

Certain types of pots and pans work best and a careful cook helps. I never shake or turn the pans as they could possibly permanently scratch the cooktop. I have one scratch that does annoy me.

We have a smoothtop induction range (Samsung) that replaced a coil top. Love it. Only the area under the pot gets hot. It is easy to clean up usually with a paper towel, but I will use a cooktop cleaner, too. Only thing with induction is certain pots will not work on it (certain nonstick, copper), but that was not a problem for us. I have nonstick that will work on induction, but I use the LeCreuset grill pan a lot, too.

Got a floor model so we got a fabulous deal. It also has a convection oven, which is very helpful in the holiday season to roast meats.

I would recommend that you look at induction as opposed to electric, the cleanup is much easier and the heat is more responsive with induction. I'm not good at explaining why but there are a lot of discussions about it.
I remember having to use a razor blade to remove certain stains on my electric flat top.

Induction might mean you need to replace pans and pots, depending on what you have now.

We've had the same smooth top over 10 years. Ours is white and is used constantly. No scratches, or stains.

The hardest 'stuff' to get off the top would be boiled over sugar mixtures. Once the top cools, I have been known to scrape it up with a razor blade.

ML

I have had a smooth top range for three weeks now after vowing I would never buy one. So far, I love it. It takes a little more care but is so sleek and shiny! It does need more cleaning (Cermabrite is the best) and I do clean it after cooking. Read up on the care of it before you begin to use it.

I'm on my second smooth top, they're so much more easy to maintain. I clean the top off after every use. Once a week I use a pro cleaner but for day to day I use one part Parsons lemon scented ammonia to 3 parts water and it works great. Actually I use that on most every thing.
In addition to the ease of it, I like the look of a smooth top. For years I was removing those darn grills and cleaning the under pans and it's so good to eliminate that chore.

My MIL purchased one with poor results. When we were moving her into our home and preparing her home for lease, cleaning that stove was the hardest job. I decided it was because her pots and pans had gunk on the outside that transferred to the stove. Her pots and pans were 65 year old wedding gifts. I used razor blades to clean it with ok results but that just seemed wrong to me. She took such pride in keeping a clean stove so it was kind of sad.

Love mine and find it far easier to keep clean than grates on a gas stove. Clean is CLEAN on a glass top, like a mirror or window. I have little boil overs or drips on mine all the time. Let it cool, scrape off residue, spritz your cleaner of choice and use a mircofiber cloth - done.

We sold our house with a gas range top (we've always had a gas stove) and we are now in a rental until new house is done, and it has an electric smoothtop-sorry to say, I absolutely hate the thing-Sorry! I cook quite a bit, and there is such a difference, in my opinion. It doesn't get hot enough is my biggest gripe, hard to clean, etc. Granted, this is probably a cheap model, but, I cannot hardly wait to get back to my gas stove. My big pot takes forever to boil water! I have used a coil in my MIL old house, and it is much faster to heat things, to me anyway. Not as pretty though. We cook a lot-but not lately. My SIL has an electric smoothtop and has always liked it-but, she is more of a baker than I am.

I think I would love and induction cooktop though!

If you are use to electric, you would probably be fine with a smoothtop.

Another vote for induction. I am grateful every day that we made the decision to give it a try. I'll never go back to gas or regular electric. Mine is five years old and looks like new.

I have one at our beach house and hate it. Maybe I'm not using the right products, but it never looks clean to me. It's black, too, so it's hard to even tell what it is that's making it look dirty. Part of the issue is that I'm just used to cooking on a gas stove, but we can't get gas where our beach house is located.

I bought one for my parents-- and my sister has one. I am also starting to research appliances and my one requirement is a gas cooktop or range. I won't even consider the flat top (or electric coil for that matter). I find they are slower to heat and they just don't get hot enough.

I do think how you cook should be part of the consideration. My sister loves hers and has no complaints. I just prefer the control of a gas cooktop.

I agree with dlm, clean is clean! But, just to prepare you, every drop of water has to be wiped up to be clean. I clean the stove almost every day.
Cerama bryte cleaner is the best. It is all I have used ( although tried others) and here, I have to buy it at Lowes or Home Depot.
My next stove will be induction but they are still pretty pricey. Oh heck, I really want a Viking and that has nothing to do with anything but looks.

I'm on my second one and really like them. I will say that I do not care for cooking with gas. That's just me and my personal preference.

Our first smooth cooktop was a taupish color. The stove itself was almond. I now have a SS stove with a black cooktop. The black itself is a bit more work, because it shows smudges, etc. easily. I suppose I do baby the smooth cooktop somewhat. I know that they can be scratched. Our old one was right @ 15 years old and only had a couple of tiny scratches. You probably would not be able to find them if you didn't know they were there. You need to use certain pans - they need to be flat on the bottom (not ridged or anything). I am careful about what I sit on the stove and I do not pull or drag anything across it. Cleaning is pretty easy. I've never used a razor blade or anything sharp. I would definitely be scared that would scratch. Believe it or not, you can use a magic eraser without it scratching. If I boil something over, I use a magic eraser. I also use cook top cleaner from time to time and if something boils over. I don't use it for day-to-day cleaning.

All-in-all, we are happy with ours. Obvious, I guess, or we wouldn't have bought a second one.

tina

I prefer the heat control of a gas top, but the clean up of a smooth top. We have one now and it ALWAYS looks nice. I cook on it daily and have spill overs lots. I clean it with one of the green square scratch pads that you get 6 in a bag for at the dollar tree, and a little soft scrub. It is always shiny and clean.

Cleaning doesn't bother me. As I tell my daughter, just do it when it happens. Have had them in 3 homes. Wished when moving in here that I'd known there was a gas connection available, or would have gone in the gas direction. My cooking is not what it once was when family was at home, so gas isn't a priority. Would be nice though.

Smooth tops are not great for controlling heat, you really have to become "friends" with it to learn the right temps at what intervals. What cooking results occur with they type of pots used. Once the stove is understood, it works well.

Yes to sugar based spills, they really harden and need to be scraped off after cooling. Have not had any scratches from razor blade use or other possibilities. The dust is a "bug me" factor, again probably due to not using my stove as much now.

I do get grumpy when others use the stove if they don't get it regarding more care needed with a smooth top. And worry about my dropping something on it. Possible breakage is an unknown and haven't heard of this being a big concern.

With that said, the stove does well for what I need now. But would take gas if there was a choice in buying a new stove.

Sad to say I didn't do any research when I went to replace our coil-top electric. I didn't even know about glass tops or induction. We went to a huge appliance center that had about 3 dozen stoves and only one or two were coil-top. They are low end stoves, so it wasn't even an option. We needed a slide-in and got the GE Profile. I would have bought induction if the salesperson had talked to us about them.

The smooth tops are so much better, but you will have to clean them everyday. You don't want to leave little splatters on the glass and then cook them on when you turn on the burners for the next meal. It has a Power Boil burner for large and small pots, so boiling isn't a problem. Simmering can be, but I transfer my sauces to the warming zone burner once they are at simmer level on a regular burner.

You might want to get a new vent hood along with the stove. Then new pots and pans. Then a new kitchen. That's what happened to me. ;)

I've had one for the last 18 years and it still looks great (when it's clean). I quit babying it after the first year. Mine is not a solid color top though. It has a random pattern of white squiggles over the black and I think that probably hides any scratches, although I see very little scratches when I do clean it.

The only complaint I have about mine is that the double hob burner doesn't really have a low temp. I'm sure that is an issue that has been corrected since then.

In a perfect world........ I'd have a glass induction cook top, electric wall ovens and ONE large, high BTU gas burner!

I know, no one asked ;-)

Regarding cleaning glass cooktops, I find microfiber cloths to do the best job along with an all purpose liquid cleaner. Occasionally I'll use a glass cooktop cleaner for stubborn spots, but find the microfiber cloths to be the first line of defense for the cooktop as well as all other surfaces.

Mother had a smooth top electric and I didn't like it. It heated quickly but was very slow to cool down, resulting in burnt stuff until I got familiar with it.

I now have an induction and love it. Fast to heat, fast to cool. I can boil water in 90 seconds or less, yet set it so low as to melt chocolate without a double boiler. It works great with cast iron, but I had to have DH grind any burrs off the pot bottoms so they wouldn't scratch as they are heavy.

Me too dlm2000!

Yes, I currently have a coil top electric. My parents had (coil) electric and that's also all I've used after I moved out.

I'll have to look into the induction stoves more.

So the flat top burners I've seen with the yucky, burnt marks are actually food that spilled over and all they need to do is clean it? The top isn't ruined?

I was just getting ready to type that DH is a sloppy cook, but honestly I'm not always much better. If salt or pepper ends up under the burner and the pan drags it, I'll end up with scratches, eh?

Of course I'm fine with cleaning after cooking, but don't want it ruined/looking ugly after a little oopsie. I also don't want us freaking out to 'be careful with the stove top!' all the time.

Shee, induction cools down very fast so you won't get the baked on stains that are difficult to remove on the flat top electric.

I have a glass cooktop and I find it to be very easy to clean and have not seen that salt/pepper or pans have made any scratches. And I use my cast iron pans frequently and am not particularly careful about it. I don't baby it at all. I love how it gets completely clean. Of course I would prefer gas, but until this one dies....

I had one at the lake house. I HATED it. There were stains I couldn't scrub out. I hired professional cleaners. They couldn't remove it either. It was that baked on stain in small scratches of the surface. Anyway we replaced with an induction range. The electric had to be upgraded versus just replacing with another flat top. I think it was totally worth it. Annie nailed all the reasons why an induction is superior. It's worth the increase in price if your budget allows.

Reading the comments, am wondering what or if the smooth tops are different in quality for care, long lasting use. Have not thought of this nor looked at reviews. Would suggest you look at the variety of options available. One manufacturer will have dozens of different variables based on one stove style. And they are getting much smarter. Options such as a double cook zone size for different size pans on same location, keep warm, single zone too large for most pots, single zone too small for most spots, single/double ovens with or without toasting, warming. The list can get long. And induction, which I'd like too.

Here's a start so I can confuse you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Smooth top stove comparisons

I'm on my 2nd glass top. The first was kind of gray with speckles and I LOVED not having to clean coil burners, nor have things boil over and run down into the top of the stove. Where I ran into problems was canning..I have an aluminum steam canner and for some reason it caused the top of the stove to discolor. Also, boil-over of sugary food (jam) that I couldn't remove from the burner until it was finished cooking, which burned on in the process, also was impossible to remove. It wasn't dirty, it just burned up the gray speckles which made it look darker than the rest of the stove, thus looked dirty.

I considered induction, but wasn't sure I had the wiring capabilities in my home, plus I have collected 40 years worth of my favorite pans, some of them not compatible with induction. So I got another glass top. This one is shiny black and I am determined to keep it looking new. It is a pain! Not really a pain to clean, but the fact that I have to clean it EVERY time I cook something. It never looks good just wiping it down, so I use the ceramabrite cleaner, which takes a fair amt of time to get wiped down to the nice shiny glass look with no streaks. I also bought a countertop burner to use for canning.

If I live long enough, I'll get an induction next time and just pay for new wiring and new pans. I grew up cooking with gas and I'd choose it over any other, but it's not available in my area.

This post was edited by olychick on Wed, Nov 20, 13 at 1:39

Hmm.. oh, decisions.

Even though I see a lot of good reviews the bad ones are enough to make me not want one. Iheart especially - that's not cool about the scratches/stains. I'm surprised they haven't come up with something so they're scratch resistant.

If I had to buy one tomorrow I'd get another coil top, but I have time to think. I've only seen ONE ss coil top (so far) that I like the look. The stove is only 4.8 cu and I think mine's 5.3. I'm not sure how much of a difference that is IRL. I haven't done any in person searching. Also my coils are tight together and they're more spaced out on this stove. I prefer the look of the tighter coils and would think it would heat better and more evenly.

I wish I knew someone with a flat top I could test out for a day. All the people I know that had one hated it and replaced with something else.

Unfortunately induction is out. I'm perfectly fine with a lower model. My only requirement, besides it cooking food, is to have a self-cleaning feature.

And I'm still not 100% sure I can handle the stainless steel cleaning. I'm tired of white and black will be too heavy. Clad isn't something I want in this kitchen.

I'll probably have dishwasher questions at some point. Mine cleans wonderful and I know quite a few people with expensive dishwashers that don't or they've had to replace in only a few years! Lots of reading to do there.