This is your chance to tell the Dope what burner you like best. Sure, we say that we all love our burners equally, but inside we all know who our favorite is.
My go-to burner is the one at the front right of the stove. It’s a big burner, so for smaller pots I tend to choose the back right burner, which is surprisingly hot for being a normal size.
I tend to use the front left for pasta water, as it leaves space for sauce cooking on the right, and is easier to pick up/drain than the back left. Back left? It maybe gets used at Thanksgiving, or if Mrs. Cheesesteak is using a double burner griddle. She’s weird that way, prefers two equally sized burners for the big griddle.
The tiny middle “simmer” burner only exists so I have another thing to clean.
We’ve got a 5 burner gas range, and the front left is a “power burner” that’s about 30-40% hotter than the normal ones. The center and back left are “simmer burners”, meaning that they’re about 25% less hot than the normal ones. The right side burners are both “normal” ones.
I’d say that 65% of the cooking is done on the front left, followed by the front right, back right, and back left. That center burner almost never gets used.
Front right is the most powerful so it gets the most use. Then I would say the back left which I use if I need to simmer/boil something while I’m cook on the front right.
My go-to burner is the three-way burner on the front left. I can use any size pot or pan on it. Second would be the large burner on the front right. I rarely use either of the small burners in back, except maybe on Thanksgiving when there’s a lot of cooking going on.
Tell me about this three-way burner. I have never totally loved our stove (the builder’s choice…) so I daydream about getting a new one sometimes. I was able to junk our dishwasher when it failed but I don’t think this stove will ever fail so I will probably never get a new one, but I do enjoy daydreaming. So what is a three-way burner and what brand is your stove, @shoeless? Also, @bump, what brand is yours? I like the idea of a fifth burner too.
It’s a Whirlpool with a glass cooktop. The left front burner can use the inner 1/3 for small pans, 2/3 for medium sized pans, or the full burner for large ones. I usually use it on the small or medium setting while using the large burner on the right for a large pan.
The right front would be my go-to because it is next to a counter space next to the sink.
However, even though the front right and front left are large-ish burners, they don’t get hot enough to boil water. The only burner that gets hot enough to boil water is the largest center burner. So, that is the one I use mostly. It’s a pain if I’m needing to cook on multiple burners.
One of my neighbors told me that he had complained enough about the cooktop to the building management that he was able to get them to replace his. Might be worth a try…
Front-left or front-right are the biggest ones and get the most use. Stovetop stews usually start there and end up on the rear right back burner to simmer. (That’s a medium burner). Back left gets used for things that just need to be kept warm on the barest heat. Central burner rarely gets used by me, but my wife likes to set the kettle on that one (just the center part of the central burner – there is also a larger part that is meant to be used with a stovetop griddle, but we have never used the griddle.)
It’s not exactly this, but looks pretty close (to help describe the central burner):
It’s a Maytag 5 burner range/double-oven. (we actually got it from Home Depot, not “Designer Appliances”, but it’s pretty old and this was the best description I could find)
Ours is a double oven like yours, but GE model. I’m not sure why the one pictured has six knobs — ours has five.I guess maybe in the picture I found the two central burners get two knobs, whereas with ours one knob controls the inner and outer central burner. Also, the two front burners in my picture look slightly different whereas in ours they are identical visually. Sizing all looks the same. (Looks like front left in the picture may have an inner and outer burner as well—ours is single.)
We have a Frigidaire 5-burner range with the “high heat” burners at the front right and back left and the big “griddle” burner in the center. I tend to use the two front burners the most. I use the big front right by default, unless the pan/pot I’m using is smaller than the burner, then I use the “normal” sized front left.
The middle burner by far gets used the least. I’m not sure we’ve ever used it to be honest with you.
We like our range except for one thing we didn’t notice before we bought it, which is the controls seem non-standard to me, in that the knobs for the front burners are not the outside knobs, but rather the two inner knobs (center knob is for the center burner, as expected). Every range I’ve ever used before has the knobs arranged the other way. It took me years to not accidentally turn on the back right burner every time I wanted to turn on the front right burner.
Front left. I’ve also got one of those stoves with 5 burners, on mine the front right is the most powerful, but front left is closer to the work counter. The middle one is a long lozenge shape that came with a griddle pan. I think I’ve made pancakes on it once.
Front right for me as well. I have a four burner gas range. Front right and left rear have “power boost”, which pretty much just means they’ll allow a larger flame than the other two, which is useful for boiling big pots of water. I guess they’re roughly equivalent to the big burners on an electric stove, but being gas if I’m using a smaller pot I can just turn down the flame a bit to match the size of the pot.
I suspect there’s a reason most of us favor the front right burner – The front ones are obviously easier to reach, and since most people are right handed it feels more natural to stir something on the right side of the stove.
