Gas cooktops review

01.Introduction

Results for 19 gas cooktops, priced from $379 to $3389

Kitchen design freedom for the homeowner is a major selling point of a cooktop. They give you the flexibility of having a separate wall oven placed anywhere in the kitchen, at waist level, or higher if required. With their sleek stainless steel, glass or enamel surfaces, the right cooktop can look incredibly stylish as well.

CHOICE tested 14 four-burner gas cooktops to fit a square cut-out and four 90cm five-burner gas cooktops, plus an extra wide three-burner - the Fisher & Paykel Izona Cooksurface.

Our testers considered:

• Cooking performance We use the following tests to assess cooking performance:
  • White sauce assesses the ability of the simmer burner at low temperatures for a prolonged time.
  • Rice assesses the ability and speed of the medium burner to boil rice, maintain a desired level of heat at lowest-temperature setting and the cooker’s turn-down capacity (control response).
  • Stir fry assesses the wok burner’s ability to deliver continuous high heat.
  • Melting chocolate determines if the simmer burner is capable of gently cooking foods that are very sensitive to high temperatures.
• Ease of use Our Home Economist, Fiona Mair, looks at the stability of the trivets, layout of burners, whether the pots fit comfortably and the stability of pan support. She also looks at how easy the controls are to use in relation to their size and shape, labelling and position. She assesses ease of cleaning the surface, controls, trivets and burners, and whether there are appropriate spill-catchment areas.

For more information on cooktops, including gas, electric and combination, see our Cooktops buying guide.

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Our testing revealed that while most perform well, some fall short in terms of safety. Several of the models don't have flame failure protection (which cuts out the gas if the flame goes out). CHOICE believes it should be made a standard requirement and so we don’t recommend models without this feature.

To check whether your gas cooktop has this flame failure protection, look for two small rods sticking up next to the burner. One is for the ignition (all ignition systems are electric) and the other detects the flame. However there are some exceptions, two cooktops tested have automatic re-ignition, and in this case both funtions are integrated into one device, hence only one rod next to the burner.

Models tested

Square

• # Baumatic BA62SS
• Blanco BCGC74B (68cm)
• Blanco CG604WXFFC
• Bosch PCH615FAU
• Chef GHC615W
• Electrolux E:line EHGC77BS (rectangular but fits a square cut-out)
• Emilia SEC64GWI
• Fisher & Paykel CG604CWFW1
• Highland HP4SSNL
• Ilve H360CVX
• Miele KM 2012
• Smeg CIR60XS
• Westinghouse GHP765S
• Whirlpool AKT616IX

Rectangular

• Fisher & Paykel CG905DWFCX1
• Fisher & Paykel Izona CookSurface
• Miele KM 2054
• Omega OG92XA
• Westinghouse GHP795S

# Discontinued.

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