If you must have that new cooking rage, the choices can be somewhat overwhelming between commercial equipment or standard style, convection cooking, gas or electric. But one of the most important choices you will have to make is with regards to the actual cooktop and if you want traditional burners or a smooth surface. This choice not only affects the way you’ll clean or cook on it, but also the appeal of your range.

Most modern cooking ranges, except for the cheaper models, are now appointed with ceramic glass, smooth cooktop designs rather than conventional coil burners and are often referred to as “gas on glass”. These designs can also be had in stainless steel models so here are the pros and cons of smooth surface cooktops to ease your buying decision.

Pros

• They are easier to clean especially after a messy meal. Crumbs can fall into the crannies and sauces may leak into the crevices of traditional coil burners
• Ceramic cooktops boast a sleek design, which can enhance the overall appeal of your kitchen to make it look more updated and modern
• A ceramic cooktop can also serve as a counter space owing to its flat surface with no protruding burners

Cons

• To clean ceramic cooktops, you must use special cleaning products but even using these products does not guarantee that messes will be eliminated.
• Ceramic cooktops are more prone to cracks and scratches if anything is dropped on the surface. With regards to repair and replacement costs, replacing the glass may cost you roughly $300, while the entire cooking range an upwards of a $1000.
• It is hard to tell when a ceramic burner is turned on making it unsafe around children unlike a traditional gas burner or electric coil. This could increase the chances of burning by touching any area of the surface that has not properly cooled

On a brighter note, not all ceramic cooktops are built the same, where some manufacturers offer induction cooktops, which work in the same way as your microwave oven and use a magnetic field. This magnetic field located underneath the pan does not transfer heat to the glass cooktop itself but to the pan. In addition, they offer more even distribution of temperature, but will set you back roughly $3000 or more if you’d like to own one.

Thermador

One of the biggest names in appliances introduced a full service induction appliance – the Freedom Induction cooktop, which with the help of a mapping interface recognizes cookware shape, size and position to generate heat without limits. This cooktop is appointed with 48 separate 3” induction elements underneath its surface, and can accommodate large pans.