eventg. First off, thank you, thank you, thank you, for going through my questions one by one and answering the best you could! This was a huge help. So I looked up the specs of your range. It's so nice to read a first hand account of someone with a newer Bertazzoni. Most people have older models. Here are your specs:

1 power burner 1300 - 19000 BTU

1 large burner 2500 - 10400 BTU

2 medium burners 1500 – 5900 BTU

1 simmer burner 750 – 3500 BTU

So if you could give me a "guesstimate". Let’s say I make mashed potatoes an hour before dinner. Could I keep those potatoes, covered, on the 1300 btu burner without burning the bottom of the pan?

Also, a follow up about the convection fans. Could you bake your cookies with the fan off, if you chose, so their would be no noise whatsoever or is there another fan that might turn on for some reason?

We were able to bake something over the weekend at 400F and the door get hot to the touch after a while. The door got the hottest after we had turned the oven off and the fan wasn't blowing any more. While the fan was working the air blown was not hot.

The fan turns on as soon as you turn the oven on in any setting and it will remain on during the whole process. I'm assuming this is the main reason why the exterior doesn't overheat.

I'm not sure about the duration of the simmering. I put only a 1/4 cup of water in a 8" SS pan, uncovered. Put it in the lowest setting of the power burner (1300 BTU from users manual), and the water finally evaporated after around 18 minutes. It'll depend on how big of a pot, the amount of contents, the amount of moisture.

My guess is yes, if it's big enough and you keep it covered so the moisture doesn't evaporate that quickly, but again your experience might be different.

Thank you, evantg, for taking the time and effort to share with me your experience with the Bertazzoni. I really mean it. I just don't get how a person can go to a showroom and look at a static, non-working range and make a decision to purchase it based on looks and scant information alone. Your firsthand account is helping me and hopefully will help others considering Bertazzoni.

When you say that the fan turns on as soon as the the oven turns on are you talking about the cooling fan or are you talking about the convection fans? If it's the cooling fan turning on, is this the one you say is a bit noisy? What about the convection fans? When they turn on, are they also noisy? So are you saying that there is no way to use the oven without fans turning on? This seems odd to me but maybe all ranges have this feature nowadays.

Also, your experiment with 1/4 cup of water in an 8 inch sauce pan is a great experiment. I am going to try this on my 20 year old, cheap Premier stove and see what happens. I will let you know. All the best.

The cooling fan, I can barely hear the convection fan behind the cooling fan noise when I switch from a non-convection setting to a convection one. So it doesn't really add anything.

Yes, there's no way to turn on the cooling fan that I know of. I think there are other brands that don't turn on the cooling fan until the oven reaches a certain temperature, that might be better. Said that, my oven preheats very quickly, so even it the fan only switched on after reaching 350, it would save me 3 minutes of noise at most.

Thank you evantg. Oh geeze, it looks like every new range, even all-gas ranges have cooling fans that will come on when using the oven no matter what. Fisher & Paykel also has cooling fans. Because I live in a small NYC apartment and my kitchen table is next to my stove I'm sure the noise of a cooling fan would be quite annoying. If I had a larger kitchen or lived in the suburbs where I can have a bit of distance from the range I don't think the cooling fan noise would be a problem. I can't believe I'm thinking this but, money no object, I'm thinking about getting another cheap Premier Gas Range. No cooling fans in them. It's old technology but there are no electronics in their gas ranges. They are so ugly though.

https://www.premierrange.com/gasranges36.php

Why can't I find a new, modern gas range without these issues?

I just got off the phone with a Bertazzoni technician. He services Bertazzoni ranges and has first hand knowledge of the pluses and minuses of these ranges. He concurs with me that an all-gas range is the way to go. There are less problems with all-gas than dual-fuel due to the extra electrical and logic board components in a dual-fuel range.

Now about the cooling fan. Yes, it comes on no matter what kind of range you buy, gas or dual-fuel. The fan cools the control panel which sits above a shelf just behind the burner knobs. I told him that I bake bread quite often with sustainable temps at 500º. The cooling fan will turn on and stay on after baking until the oven temperature drops. He said that the fan is noisy for some people but not for others.

Because my NYC kitchen is small and in an enclosed space he understood my concern about the loudness of the cooling fan.

The technician also echoed my concern that baking at such high temperatures could expedite the failure of the analog thermometer on the stove. He has had to replace broken thermometers in the past and strongly suggested I purchase an extended warranty.

He encouraged me to try and find an appliance store where the range is hooked up to a gas line so I could take the range for a test drive. This is a great idea but I don't know where I'm going to find a real working Bertazzoni range? I would encourage anyone looking for a new range, no matter what model it is, to do the same. Since I have concerns about the btu's on the burners also I need to make it a mission to find a working Bertazzoni range and test it out.

This information is very helpful as I am looking into buying the Bertazzoni (same model that evantg has). What concerns me is the door remains hot after baking at high temp. How hot does the door get? I don’t want any unforeseen injuries because of this issue. I am surprised that Bertazzoni has not successfully dealt with this.

Evantg are are you a serious cook/baker? Are you happy with your purchase? I live in a household with a serious chef and baker so trying to find an oven to satisfy how everyone will use it is a challenge.

Thank you again for addressing all these questions and having them answered. Davidhunternyc what have you decided to purchase?

I still have not made a decision. I bake bread quite a bit and the high temps required will expedite the logic board and thermometer failing prematurely. My roommate is also a chef at Per Se and we cook a lot. I'm desperately trying to find an all-gas range with sealed burners and without computer chips that can be overheated. People have mentioned BlueStar to me but they are too deep to fit in the doorway of my pre-war apartment. I can't believe I'm in the position of considering a basic, cheap Premier oven. Nothing to break. Nothing to go wrong. No fan whatsoever. It's not modern and it's uglier than sin...

https://www.premierrange.com/gasranges36.php

you seem to be in the same predicament as I am in (minus trying to fit it through a tight doorway :)) I am not completely sold on it but I am having difficulty finding something without the modern technical gadgets that can cook and bake well. I am also looking at Blue Star but I am not a fan of the open burner and prefer the sealed burner.

Hi Frances, yes, we are in the same situation. I love BlueStar but it won’t fit in my kitchen and I have roommates who will spill in those food burners. I can’t imagine the cleanup. I’m still not closer to a decision but I found something else this morning:

I'm still not quite ready to write a full review of my Bluestar RCS 36" gas range but I will do my best to put my cursory thoughts together for the moment. At this time I would give this range 4 out of 5 stars.

I am completely happy that I passed on the Bertazzoni. Beware of the loud cooling fans on the Bertazzoni and Fisher Paykel. There are computer chips inside of them that heat up and fail. It's the biggest reason why I passed on these two ranges though there were also design decisions that did not make sense. (Who uses a hob rail?)

There are no computer chips inside of the Bluestar. It is analog simplicity at it's finest. I have not put the Bluestar through all of it's paces because of the hot summer and I don't have air conditioning in my pre-war apartment. Once fall approaches I will be using the Bluestar quite a bit more and will have a more thorough opinion.

After the first few weeks with the Bluestar I had quite a scare. I was using a new top recommended oven thermometer from America's Test Kitchen. The oven temp on the thermometer was more than 50º off from what was on the dial. I called Bluestar and they sent a technician to my apartment within a few days. Luke, the tech, was very kind and knowledgeable and he tested the oven temp with a much more accurate and complex digital thermometer. It turned out that the oven temperature was completely accurate and my $20 oven thermometer was inaccurate. He explained to me that this happens frequently with new Bluestar owners. Trust the oven. I was holding on to the oven thermometer like a band-aide and just because it was analog it did not mean that it was accurate. Now that I know that I had a perfectly functioning stove I could move on to cooking without any worries.

Let me tell you, one of the major reasons why I chose to purchase the Bluestar was because of the 1850º infrared ceramic broiler. What I didn't expect was how life changing it would be. I mean, wow, it's a stunning piece of tech. The flame is so hot, it's blue. Because it's an instant heat I do not have to wait for it to warm up before use. Even in the hot summer I could grill a steak in just a few minutes with incredible char without heating up my kitchen. My Thermapen MK4 ensures my meat is cooked perfectly. My favorite recipe so far is chicken tandoori.

One of the reasons why I initially wanted the Bertazzoni and Fisher Paykel was because of their true 24 inch cabinet deep profiles. Both stoves are slim and elegant. Their grates are light, thin, and easy to remove for cleaning. The Bluestar, on the other hand, is a more industrial, restaurant style stove. I was apprehensive about putting it in my small NYC kitchen. It took me awhile to adjust to the larger footprint of the Bluestar but I am now quite happy with it's size but I'm still adjusting to it's more blunt kind of styling.

Now on to why, so far, I am knocking one star off of this stove. My opinion is entirely subjective, so please take my thoughts with a grain of salt. Look at the photo below. You see how deep that front bull-nose is? I just can't quite get used to it. Granted, I have been using a rental grade stove beforehand for 20 years so I am still adjusting. My roommate, however, adjusted almost immediately to the added depth. Because of the deep, flat stainless steel area it is begging to get scratched. Yes, just three months in I do have a small micro-scratch. I brought up my concerns to Luke who came to check on my oven temperature problem. He agreed with me that scratches are going to happen and I just have to let go of this concern. Wait for several years and in the future there are ways to polish out the scratches and he would be happy to help me with how to do so when the time comes.

But still, why does the bullnose have to be so deep? Luke explained to me that the wiring for the stove was all tucked densely behind the bullnose, which I gathered. But what I didn't see was that on the underside overhang of the bullnose there are air vents that help dissipate heat when cooking. These vents omit the need for the cooling fans that are in the Bertazzoni and Fisher Paykel. Hmm, again, brilliant simplicity. My question now is why can't Bluestar design a shallower bullnose while still keeping the space for the wires and the vents? Checking other stoves, like Wolf and Viking, they too have thick bullnoses but none of them are as deep as Bluestar's. I guess it's just the new world order of stove design to have these thick bullnoses. Checking the stoves out at the steakhouse I work at they too have thick bullnoses. I just need to give myself more time to adjust.

Now on to those thick grates. I did not want them. Another reason why I initially chose the Bertazzoni and Fisher Paykel. But what I like about the Bluestar is that there is one grate for each of the 6 burners. Each grate, though heavy duty, is lighter than expected and easy to remove for cleaning. Other stoves have one continuous grate over two burners which makes them quite a bit heavier to remove. As you can see in the photo below I had a powder-coated stainless steel cover made for the middle two grates so I would I have more room for cooking equipment. It is easily removable for those times when I need to use all 6 burners.

And what about those burners? I was amazed with how quickly I could boil a huge pot of water for pasta. I love the fact that all of the burners have high output btu's except for the far left back burner for low simmering. If you have read my other threads some of you may know how anal retentive I am about burners with incredible low simmering capabilities. I still have not tested the low simmering capabilities enough to come to any conclusive opinions but so far I am happy. I am considering getting a diffuser for this stove because the burners are so wide in diameter that the flames burn the sides of narrower objects like my moka pot. I will follow up later on the burner capabilities when the weather cools and I have more time to use them extensively. Let me tell you this though. I am so glad I chose the sealed burner range over the open burner range. Yes, I know that the open burners on Bluestar ranges are legendary. The open burners are superior in performance to the sealed burners but I can't believe how easy to clean the sealed burners are. I barely have to take a wet soapy sponge to the surface to clean up spills. I am not a professional chef. I am an avid home cook and I don't need anything more than what I have. The Bluestar sealed burners are exceeding my expectations.

A couple of more notes. I have not used the convection oven too much. Again, I need to wait for temperatures to cool. Also, this stove does not have a warming drawer. I thought this would be a problem at first since my small kitchen has very little storage. My solution is that I slide my large sheet pans under my stove. I am surprised with the amount of clearance under my stove for storage. A plus is that I can now mop under my stove. Say goodbye to under-stove dust and debris. With a storage or warming drawer on other stoves cleaning under them would not be possible.

Let's just say that I am happy with my Bluestar purchase. I am glad I did not get the Bertazzoni or the Fisher Paykel. An added bonus is that the Bluestar is designed and built in America and, so far, Bluestar support has been excellent. This is a set-it and forget-it kind of stove. Simplicity is what I was after and simplicity is what I got. Thank you, Bluestar.

Just an update: As of two days ago, I discovered a problem with my Bluestar RCS sealed burner range. It's one of the reasons why I did not give a full review of the range yet. I needed to put it through its paces and this takes time. I am confident in saying that my findings would not have been fleshed out by Consumer Reports and that my posts will help others make a purchasing decision. I feel like I need to give Bluestar time to respond to the issue before I post a full review. Let's wait and see...

@davidhunternyc - Did you end up buying the Bertazzoni Range? Are you happy with it?

@Deana - in case you haven't purchased DO NOT - Bertazonni ranges have an issue with the airflow through the plenum so they make a high pitched whistling sound that you can hear from outside of your home.

https://youtu.be/xYzQJv3Tpd8 whistling bertazonni stove to not buy