Hi opaone!

Sorry your title was a bit misleading. It sounded like you had a BS and switched to a Wolf. You just changed your mind based on wanting a griddle with better reviews before you actually made a purchase correct?

I agree a great meal can be made on either range. The same is true for anything. I’ve made great meals on a campfire. There are things you can do with food though on a BS that you simply cannot with a Wolf (or a campfire). A small example from my experience is portabella mushrooms. You cannot sear portabella mushrooms in a reasonable quantity on a weak 15k sealed burner. Sure you can get it crispy, but by the time that happens the juices have evaporated. There are countless other small examples. Will the mushrooms still taste good? Absolutely! But they could have been better, or you can just cook other countless dishes that do not require high concentrated heat. I’m just saying you can make a great dish with any heat source, but the less heat the more limited you are. The Wolf is a beautiful range and I think you’ll love it.

“In the end a good cook can produce great meals with either sealed or open burner but it sometimes requires more effort and may not be as enjoyable with the sealed Wolf burners”

Open burners will generally produce more even heat across the bottom of a pan, particularly in the center where Wolf burners miss and open burners put more heat to the bottom of the pan and less up around the side in to the cooks arms and face vs sealed Wolf burners. “

”Our current Wolf is the semi-sealed which aren't bad. I'd much prefer the BS open burners”

There is a little more to it than open/sealed. The even heat is from a greater dispersal of the burner ports over a greater area with the BS star burner or even a triple ring burner like the Capital Culinarian. There are Brown open burner ranges with single ring burners. your pans can go a long way toward distributing heat. Wolf semi sealed burners are semi sealed because the tray breaks down to clean. It is still a capped ring burner with another small ring inside.

Cookware can go a long way toward evening the heat to your food. 3mm copper is the best $$$$ but I have a thick aluminum $ 14” pan that works great. I have another one that looks the same but is not as good. What are your primary uses for your griddle that you require even heat? It might be that you could have an overlay made of copper if you are placing pans on it to hold sauces.

I don’t really have the issue of heat coming around the pan with my Wolf but it has the dual stacked burners, bu it is also 15K. I use squat sauce pans, that are about 7” wide but I don’t use high heat on little pans.

“Open burners are more energy efficient.“

They aren’t. You can find claims that either one can be more efficient.

I think the only place BS totally beats Wolf though is with Wok cooking which, though we were looking forward to, we don't do much of currently.

You you can do small amounts but BS gets the heat to the middle better than Wolf but the reverse of this is if the heat is in the middle, it is also in the middle of a big skillet so not optimum for every situation.

Comments to talk me out of this welcome. :-)

if you really want BS star high BTU burners, I would think about some way to improve the heat distributionon the BS Griddle? Copper would be good unless you need to actually cook on it Then maybe aluminum. Wolf is not perfect either. Have you tried the BS Or talked to their engineers?

You use burners a helluva lot more than you use a griddle.

I have a 36RNB with griddle. Since I've never cooked on a Wolf griddle, I can't compare, but I can say I use my griddle daily, and love it. As far as uneven heat goes, at first it does get a bit hotter near the rear, but this can be used to an advantage, eg. hash browns at the rear and eggs up front. However, the longer the griddle stays on, the more the heat evens out, so if cooking something like pancakes, just let the griddle cycle a few times more. I have an infra-red thermometer, and after several cycles, the temp gets pretty consistent across the griddle.

If I had room for a 48", I would definitely get an RNB with a 24" griddle.

How much of a difference do you think the RNB 22,000 BTU vs the Platinum 25,000 BTU. when it comes to woking?

Thanks

Inga

Buying a lesser performing range for a very slightly better performing griddle is like a couple buying 32 place settings of an expensive fine china because they host Thanksgiving once a year. You’d be better off saving $6500 and buying dollar plates from Goodwill and setting a morevinteresting and eclectic table for that once a year.

Plan around the 95% use that your home will have. Not the 5% abberation. You can develop strategies for that 5%.

Like buying a good after market griddle to span 2 burners.

" Like buying a good after market griddle to span 2 burners. "

^ exactly! ^

Carbon Steel griddles

I watched a youtube on using a griddle to span two burners on a BS. What a chore removing all of the stuff you had to remove and the sound was ear deafning. If I went that route I guess I would put it in place and leave it. My Russell range has 6 burners and came with a HEAVY cast iron griddle. I leave it in place and move it only during holidays when I prefer having 6 burners to a griddle.

Inga.

A built in griddle has been very important to opaone. There has to be a way to modify the BS griddle but they have not been back to comment. It would help to know how they use it the most.

Inga, the Platinum does not have the built in griddle that the RNB does.

Having cooked on various different stoves including Wolf. My BS out beat them all for heat. Let’s put it this way, we haven’t gone out for steaks since I have a cast iron pan, the BS range and BS oven with broiler.

That saved us $200/steak because the results are equal to the steakhouse. I couldn’t replicate the result with my Wolf and Viking.

For griddle I just dump a cast iron griddle over two burners and done. My range is a 48” with 8 burners. It gives me tremendous flexibility.

cookncarpenter

Thanks I'm aware the Platinum does not have a built in griddle. We bought a house with a Viking 4 burner (not impressive) which has a built in griddle. I kind of like the built in griddle but don't kn ow it it's worth giving up the additional BTU's the Platinum series offers.

From what I gather the RNB has stainless drip pans where as the Platinum has cast iron. Personally I like stainless drip pans. It seems life is full of compromises when. When you pay these kinds of prices, compromises shouldn't really exist. My opinion mind you.

I do wish I could actually see both in person and try them as in "live" Unfortunately, there is nothing around here; consequently I depend on this forum and their personal experience to make my decision for the future remodel. Maybe by then, things will change with BS and it will be easier to chose what you like. .

Inga

beachem

Thanks for your input. Which BS do you own and what kind of griddle do you put over 2 burners and which burners ie What BTU burners front and rear for your griddle.. How well does it work for you.

Thanks

Inga

Sorry for not getting back to this sooner...

We use our griddle a lot, mostly as a flat-top (actually haven't done pancakes since last winter but I do love to make them), for a wide variety of things. As I said in my original post, I'd love to have the BS burners but I think the unevenness of the BS griddle will drive me nuttier than the Wolf burners. We may also put in a single induction plate though one of the frequent complaints on these is that they don't sauté well which would be the primary need with the lower power Wolf burners. We'll see.

Regarding a griddle placed across burners - that would be far worse than the poor griddle on the BS RNB. As with most built-in griddles, the one on the RNB and Wolf are thermostatically controlled which means that the thermostat controls the temp over time. Even on the RNB it does this far more accurately than you can turning burner knobs up and down manually. Wolf maintains a tighter temp range than does BS, approx 30* vs 50*.

Another key aspect of a good griddle or flat-top is evenness of heat across the surface. Again, Wolf is much more even than BS not just in the overall range of temps seen across the surface but also in how fast the fall-off is from one spot to another. IIRC (don't have my notes with me), with the griddle set to 450°f for 40 minutes and going side to side the temps were 360°, 420°, 490°, 410°, 500°, 420° 370°. The Wolf was 410°, 440°, 460° 470° 450° 450° 430° 420°.

I believe the problem with the BS griddle is that they use tube burners instead of IR (and the tubes really show up in the temp measurements) and BS has a thinner plate that doesn't disperse heat as well nor maintain heat as well. BTW, many pro units have two plates with water between them that results in extremely even temps across the surface and a much tighter temp range over time.

I will likely go cook on the BS once more before making a final decision but I'm not holding my breath. Oh, I found the new Wolf burners much less desirable than the older semi-sealed that we currently have.

Opaone

thanks for the detai. I for one would be interested in your final decsion

Inga

@ifoco I have the 48” platinum since everything is cast iron. I just bough a cast iron griddle in Amazon.

I haven’t had any problems with unevenness of the griddle. That cast iron beast gets hot all over.

I have 2 25k, 2 22k, 2 18k, 1 15k and 1 simmer at 12k.

I love the 25k but I do use silicon gloves when my hands are in the area because it gets so hot even in the ambient surround.

My front arrangements are 22, 25, 25, 22. I throw the griddle over the 2 25k.

We bought a Wolf 48" Dual Fuel with a double griddle and love the eveness of the griddle cooking. HOWEVER, we are really UNIMPRESSED with Wolf customer service. We had issues with installation and between Wolf Customer Service and the Wolf Showroom personnel, no one seems interested in helping and just shuttling us back to the place of purchase. :( I get better customer service on my LG washer / dryer! :)