I have a Wolf Rangetop and Double Ovens. We don't close the control panel -- doens't bother me to look like an oven and it's one less thing to break. I read on the appliance forum that a new model was coming out that doesn't have the rotating control panel.

I haven't done a turkey in it yet, but I have had my pizza stone on that bottom rack and pulled out. The doors are very substantial and I'm not really concerned about it. I also don't do that kind of cooking daily or weekly and I don't leave a heavy turkey (or anything else) hanging there for any length of time. I'm feel certain they are designed to handle at least the range of typical residential cooking (say a 25 lb turkey plus dressing and pan for several munites of basting and checking now and then). If you are concerned about it, call their customer service and ask what weight standards they are built to accomodate.

Thanks for the reply! Is there anything that you do no like about the wolf doubles? What drove you to the wolf over all the others?

We have the Wolf double ovens. Unfortunately, they are still in the box out in the garage and have been for... well, too long! We purchased them because they just seemed to be very high quality and darn it, we liked the looks too. The dual convection fans are interesting... one can be "pushing" and one "pulling" depending on the oven settings. I wouldn't worry about the hinges... the doors seem quite solid and secure. Re: the rotating panel... many of the display ovens are not always connected to power, and people play with the panel and tend to strip the gears. I think we'd leave the controls exposed 99% of the time. If Wolf is changing the design it's probably because of warranty issues. Simple is usually better. For instance... look at the design of the new sealed burners, the burner "holes" which are really now slots, are cast into the base and all that removes is a simple top. Compare that to the previous design with lots of small holes that probably tended to get plugged and were a pain to clean, and you have an improved product. Hopefully, Wolf hasn't changed too many things since we purchased our ovens several years ago. If they did, oh well, at least we paid a LOT less :-)

We also looked at Miele, but my wife preferred the more traditional Wolf ovens without all the fancy "computer junk" as she would call it. One of these days we may actually get them installed :-)

We also have a Wolf sealed burner rangetop... sitting on the pallet. It's the 36" with six burners. It looks quite nice. We didn't need or want the complication or expense of the griddle since we already have a very nice cast iron one from Sonoma Style that will sit over the burners. Saves a lot of money.

Good luck with your setup.

we have the wolf double oven and really like it- some of the features I was looking for- was both ovens are the same size- some double ovens the bottom oven is smaller. also the convection bake setting gives you more even cooking for when baking with items on multiple racks. the size is substantial, the meat probe works great. So far so good.

We too are getting the Wolf rangetop, but are trying to decide on sealed or unsealed. One of the salesman said some cooks believe the unsealed burners cook better.

We are also trying to decide between 6 burners or 4 burners with griddle. We use our Jenn Air griddle on a regular basis. Does the Wolf griddle heat evenly? How difficult is the built-in griddle to clean?

Our oven choice is coming down to Wolf or Miele. Are both Wolf ovens convection? One feature the Miele has that interests my husband is "Auto Roast" which first cooks at a very high heat to sear the meat, then auto backs down to the roasting temperature. Does the Wolf have a similar feature? Does anyone who has a Miele ever use this mode?

Personally I was set on the sealed burners, much less to clean, just pull the grates and wipe. I'm a messy cooker, usually with too many things going at once, so I tend to splatter and overboil a little. I don't want to hav eto pull the grates, burner tops and other things to clean below the surface on a daily basis. I believe both the sealed and open burners run the same 15k btu's. The wolf is a double convection for both. I prefer to dark roast manually to get the right color, never tried an auto roaster, I just don't see it giving the color I want.

we went through the sealed vs. open burner debate on our wolf rangetop. in error my dh ordered the sealed burners when he really wanted the open burner- he felt the open burner gave you the low simmer on all 6 burners, where the sealed had 1 burner with a very low setting and others not as low. we ended up selling our sealed rangetop and craigs list and got the open burners. now that we have been cooking for a couple of months i really like the open burners and flexibility it gives. the clean up isn't so bad.

Thank you for the info on the Wolf rangetop. Somehow we had missed that on the sealed burner models the burners are different. I am still not sure which way we will go, but having identical burners is a major plus in the unsealed evaluation. I imagine that is what we will decide.

Now to decide 6 burners vs griddle vs grill.

Can anybody report on using the Wolf burners with a wok? Did you get the special grate?

The sealed burners on the rangetops are all the same size except for one 9200 BTU/hr. The rest are 15K. The unsealed are 16K, and for simmering the unsealed uses only the tiny ring in the center. Since I have not cooked with this I can't say for sure, but it seems like this may not provide as uniform heating as the sealed burner on simmer, which is a larger diameter.

I'm glad we passed on the griddle... just not worth the money at the expense of giving up two burners (not a big deal on the 48" wide unit where you can have both).

We got the wok grate thrown in for free. It's normally $48. Looks like it should be fine... has a large center hole about 6" in diameter which should allow the flame to wrap around the pan better. Of course using a wok on a regular range is not ideal anyway, but we don't do that much wok cooking. The hot setup... pardon the pun... would be a dedicated wok burner, possibly an induction type or very high output gas.