Types of Cooktops

Cooktops are available in two types - gas or electric - and are designed to drop into your countertop. Most are paired with one or more wall ovens to outfit a kitchen. Cooktops with separate wall ovens offer a great deal of flexibility in the layout of your kitchen and allow you to choose individual features for both.

Whether electric or gas, both have many of the same features and are designed to operate in essentially the same way.

Most cooktops offer four to six burners with some offering other options such as grills and griddles (other less common accessories include steamers, fryers, rotisseries and woks). Burners can be electric coil, electric smoothtop, gas, or induction and most are made of porcelain-coated steel or glass ceramic.

Advanced technologies, such as halogen-based heating, which uses halogen lights as the heating source, and induction cooking, which generates magnetic fields to heat cookware, are also available, albeit at a higher price. To get the most from your electric cooktop, use flat-bottomed cookware. If your cookware has an uneven bottom surface, it will not work efficiently with either coil or radiant elements.

Electric cooktops are known for providing a constant and even heat, but lack the speed and temperature control that gas offers. On the market today, almost all but the least expensive electric models are smoothtops. Smoothtops are sleeker and offer more features having expandable dual or triple elements that let you switch from a large, high-power element to a small, low-power element.

Gas cooktops that are smoothtops have sealed burners, which prevent liquid messes and food debris from getting below the cooktop. These "gas-on-glass" models are similar to electric models with ceramic glass surfaces, except gas burners are under the smooth ceramic surface. Gas cooktops are also available in stainless steel, another popular surface style.

Smoothtops make it easy to clean up spills, but require a special cleaner; dropped pots and sugary liquids can damage them. Coils are tougher and easier to replace, but require more cleaning time and effort.

Modular cooktops are simply cooktops that can accommodate gas or electric heating elements and are compatible with a variety of custom cooking accessories. Some models come with heating elements and accessories included, others provide open bays allowing you to select exactly what accessories you want to use. Modular cooktops are ideal if you often cook different dishes and like to have a wide range of options.

Pay attention to the heat output your new cooktop exerts: Btus for gas cooktops and Watts for electric cooktops.

For gas cooktops, the most common configuration includes two medium-sized medium-output burners (about 9,000 Btu/hr.), a small low-output burner (about 5,000 Btu/hr.), and a large high-output burner (about 12,500 Btu/hr.). The higher the Btu, the more heat exerted quickly, the quicker your water boils and your steaks sear.

For electric cooktops, the most common configuration includes two larger, high-output elements (2,000+ Watts) and two smaller, low-output elements (1,200+ Watts). For smoothtop cooktops, different models have different combinations of elements.