No it does not mean all gas is rubbish at baking.

You need to decide which is more important to you and go that route. Do you bake daily? Then get the dual fuel 30". Do you use your cooktop daily and only bake infrequently? Then get the gas range.

For perspective, I have a 30" gas range. I bake a few times a year, and use my oven mostly for roasting. I do not have a commercial style range, either. The baking performance has been fine. Not sure I could even tell the difference. But I'm not baking souffles. Tollhouse cookies, more like. But I can tell you this. I HATE how small my cooktop is. Seriously not enough space. I would KILL for a 36" range.

Bottom line, if you're doing crazy baking, like macarons and bread and whatever else might benefit from an electric oven, by all means, consider the smaller dual fuel. But if you use your range mostly for cooking, go with the 36" gas. Supposedly gas is better for roasting anyway.

What type of oven do you have now?

There are differences but they may or may not be significant to you. Most things you will read will tell you that gas is moist heat. They are only looking at the heat source and not the oven cooking food as a whole. Gas does release water as a byproduct of combustion BUT it has a large vent to release the byproducts of combustion. Electric Ovens start with a dry heat source but have a small vent. Food cooking produces moisture so you can have a lot of humidity in an electric oven and very little in a gas oven.

These are the things that you will likely notice. They come from many comments on baking and cooking forums plus my own experience.

There is more heat and moisture in the kitchen while you are using the oven.

Many bread bakers on baking forums say it is very hard to keep added steam in the oven. They add steam to promote starch gelatinization to get a certain crust. In an electric oven, humidity can give a cake a little more time to rise because it promotes starch gelatinization. .

This doesn’t mean you can’t bake in a gas oven. A lot can depend on the recipe. If you have baked in an electric oven and have collected recipes that work, they may come out differently in gas and vice versus. Some people say they don’t notice any difference.

Another difference I have noticed is if you are baking pies, most electric oven now have a hidden element so you don’t get the same radiant heat and browning on the bottom of pies. I have one recipe that doesn’t work at all with the hidden element.

Many people say that gas ovens roast very well. The dry air dries what you are cooking superficially and for meat this promotes the Maillard and other browning reactions. They often say that “moist gas heat” keeps the inside moist. This isn’t possible because the amount of moisture in meat is determined by temperature. I think meat just looks done sooner so it is less likely to overcook.

I‘m not sure that a temperature +/- 2°F vs even +/-25°F would make that big a difference. Electric ovens do tend to have more features and seem a little more versatile. If you need more drying, use the convection fan. Sometimes you can direct the heat, more from the top for roasting. some have “true convection”(or European) which is a third element in back. The marketing on this is that it will even the heat in your oven.

It can actually set up a blow torch affect causing hot spots.

One more thing is that I would not buy anything with a blue interior except Gaggenau. Almost every other brand has had some issues with it chipping. KA even sells touch up paint

https://www.kitchenaid.com/major-appliances/wall-ovens/accessories/touch-up-paint/p.oven-liner-touchup-paint-marker,-blue.w10791627.html

but this is not the answer to chipping glass enamel, convection fans and food all being together in one box. I’m not sure if that applies to the ones you are looking at.

Be sure to read the manual online to make sure what the oven does and. does not do. Read lots of reviews about how evenly the oven bakes.

+1 with weekick on bread bakers. We commonly lament that gas ovens are so well vented, they let out steam, but electric ovens are usually more tightly sealed, which lets you add hot water to a heat sink to generate steam when baking bread. There are numerous things to consider, however. First, if you are a dedicated bread baker, there are some work arounds, like baking in a enclosed dutch oven or cloche for part of the bake, and then removing the top to promote browning. Others, say that the Modernist Cuisine Bread claims that the impact of steam on baking bread is a myth http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/468987#comment-468987, though there are many commercial bakery ovens that allow for steam injection. For me, and I have a 30 inch Bluestar RNB, and used to have a Viking DF, I would go for the 36 - since that gives you a lot more room on the cooktop - it can get crowded using just 3 pans on a 30 inch range. Since you can't afford the 36 inch DF, stay with the 36 inch gas. Or consider induction if you want an electric oven. Don't get too reliant on salesman - I am sure they mean well, but doubt many of them have spent much time baking in various ovens, and no matter how evenly an oven bakes, many rotate the pans halfway through anyway.

Echoing other posts, can you tell us more about what you typically cook in the oven and how often? If you're a hardcore bread or fancy cookie and soufflé baker, then you may want the electric oven. For general mixed use, I think a good quality gas oven is just fine. Anecdotally, I've always had electric ovens, and last year moved into a new apartment with a new Whirlpool all-gas range, and the gas oven has exceeded my expectations. It pre-heats so much faster than electric (especially if it has hidden elements), and cooks evenly, despite lacking a convection fan. The only downside I've noticed is that bottoms of cookies get darker than they did in my electric oven, so I have to watch out more and/or use a Silpat. But for my mixed cooking (roast chicken, vegetables, cookies, cakes, pizza), I'm very happy with the gas oven.

weekik, sorry, I stand corrected. Many firmly believe steam impacts oven rise, and Modernist Bread seems to say not so, but I did not read the book, and don't know what breads they tested.