In Australia, cook tops are almost invariably 4 slots. Which is totally ridiculous, because for the most part, you’ll use two at the same time, maybe MAYBE three, but almost never three. Four? Forget it.
I’m partial to the SE Asian model of a two-burner stove top. Why the hell do manufacturers insist on installing FOUR?
The ones I’m familiar with have different sizes. One might be a simmer element, two might be standard size, then there may be one for a wok / large pot. You may not often need four at once, but having a range of sizes is good.
Edit: Ours has four.
No, four is useless because on your average range top, you can’t FIT four pans at the same time anyway. And you never use four…
I don’t specifically remember when I last had to use four burners, but I can think of many circumstances when one might. In fact, for those who do elaborate cookery (not me) below is an example of a home gas range with eight burners.
I do routinely use three burners, though. When preparing spaghetti, for instance, one large burner is for cooking the pasta, one for simmering the sauce, and one for sauteeing mushrooms. When doing roasts, one burner might be for mashed potatoes, one for gravy, and one for veggies or some other side. And there’s no problem fitting four pots and pans on a four-burner stove.
Two big and two small pans for example, or four pots. Also, I often use three tops at once, one pan for the main course, one pot for a sauce and one for vegetables. Maybe a fourth pot/pan for pasta, potatoes or rice. Sometimes, I’ve also got something in the oven at the same time. I couldn’t imagine how to get along with only two tops. And I’m mostly cooking only for myself.
You miss my point though. They aren’t necessarily to be used at the same time (though I don’t doubt that some people do) but for different reasons. The medium burners don’t simmer as well as the small burner for instance.
We have five burners, although we rarely use the center one - its flame is so strong we don’t want to risk burning a hole in the ceiling. But there’s plenty of room for pots and pans on all four, and my wife has been known to use all of them at a time.
The problem, of course, is finding a kitchen big enough for our stove.
On a gas stove, you need different burners for different power ranges. One big, one small, two medium. And with two separate flames for each position: Eight. But there is no doubt it is a custom: in a old style cooking, you might well have 3 burners running, in order to get everything to finish at 6:30 pm for dinner. People my sister knew were appalled at the idea of adding multiple cold meat dishes: tea was meat (gravy) and 3 veg, desert, everything was finished and scraps given to the animals. As I remember, the wood stove also had 4 cooking positions.
My wife cooks with the wok and the rice cooker. Water for tea in an electric kettle. Can’t fit 4 on the stove when the wok is there: it takes up too much space. Use the other large burner for pasta, because there isn’t anywhere else to put the wok.
Soup on burner three (not at the same time), because it goes to the back (not because anybody is using the front).
I’m with the OP. I have 4 burners on my gas stove. Two I have never used. One I have used, maybe 6 or 7 times. The smallest one I use all the time. Mind you, I am usually cooking for one.
I am also a big fan of the heat diffuser which spreads the heat so that everything becomes like a really heavy pan. It permits really even, very slow simmering.
I think that two is slightly too few (especially if one is used for a large pan) and four is slightly too many but three doesn’t feel or look “right” and would probably take up as much counterspace as four, so four it is.
Also, there is a move to induction so I guess that spare space is flat and usable as counter space anyway so no real wastage in that scenario.
I just thought of an example of a regular dish I use to cook where I need four burners plus the oven, and that’s not very extravagant: Schnitzel (in my case, veggie schnitzel) with mushroom cream sauce, fries, asparagus and sauce hollandaise: one pan for the schnitzel, a big pot for the asparagus, one pan/pot for the mushroom sauce, one for the hollandaise and the oven for the fries. And if I wanted to have a soup for an entree, I’d be already out of burners and had to improvise.
Our induction cooktop has five, two small, two medium and one large in the middle. On an induction cooktop the pan must be approximately the size of the element. There are two concentric circles on each element indicating the maximum and minimum sizes.
Between our larger skillets/pans (say for a proper fry-up or a paella) and the smallest saucepan we need all three sizes. If the pans have long handles it can be tricky to use all five. But at big dinners we have certainly had all going at once, plus two ovens and a rice cooker. Maybe four or five times over the last eight years though.
On Chinese New Year I will have two people helping me cook and another re-heating food other guests have brought (it is semi-potluck)
I’ve no idea why you say this, you’re obviously a one-pot cook. Many people aren’t.
I have five burners, and if I’m preparing a multi-dish feast, you can bet I’m using all of them.
Most of my saucepans aren’t any larger than a quadrant of the stove. Frying pans and large stockpots are an exception, but those go on the induction cooker anyway.
I use four often enough. Hell, I’ve used all four plus a two-plate electric hotplate and the single-plate induction cooker, on occasion. And I don’t run a restaurant.
I have often wished that our stovetop had 6 burners. 4 is not enough, and as has been pointed out they are too close to each other!
Our current stovetop has 4, our new one will have 5. I use 3 fairly often, 4 is a bit of a rare occurrence. But the different power levels of the various burners are critical.
It’s mostly for selection of burner size and position today, particularly needed for electric stoves, though gas stoves have a wide range of flame rings now too. Cooking with a large pot that needs attention, that smaller one can go diagonally back in the corner. 3 would work 99.99% of the time but 4 gives more options, 2 would be too few for a first world nation. The 2 I rarely use is the center one which tends to make the stove practically an inconvenient single burner, and the oval shaped burner either center or spanning 2 burners. Though one gas stove I had made the center one the most powerful one of all, used for wok cooking, but really no reason why that couldn’t be moved to a front burner position as newer ones have.
Added: stoves (ranges) are built to a certain standard size that most kitchens have and 4 works well in that size.
actually we have 5 because the one in the middle you can put a flat top griddle or another 3 pots on it which is nuts but we’ve done it occasionally …
Our new one will have 6. I think it’s probably overkill, but Mrs. P does the cooking and she liked this model. It will be installed soon (I hope)
https://www.subzero-wolf.com/wolf/ranges/dual-fuel/36-inch-dual-fuel-range-6-burners
As others have said, it’s to give you options.
Six dual-stacked burners produce up to 20,000 Btu for fast boils and intense sears and as low as 300 Btu for true simmers and worry-free melts
We just moved into a newly built apartment with a gas cook top. It has 5+ burners: 2 Medium, 1 Small, 1 in-between medium and small, 1 large ring burner with a separate tiny simmer burner in the center. It is definitely too small of a footprint for multiple full sized pots and pans. And the 2 medium sized burners don’t put out enough BTUs to boil water, so we can only use the center large ring for that. One of our neighbors told me he actually coerced the management to replace his cook top with a better configuration that eliminates the spacing and BTU issues.