BlueStar Range
High performance stove
When we remodeled our kitchen we were shocked at the prices for professional quality cooking ranges. The elite brands like Viking or Wolf were in the $7,000 range for a 6-burner. Worse, their recent reputations for quality, service and dependability were in decline. (No appliance is without horror stories; missing were sufficient new testimonials about great satisfaction to counterbalance accounts of the awful; the higher the premium, the higher the ratio should be.) In the hunt for an alternative pro quality stove, we settled on a BlueStar stove, which was significantly cheaper yet had great user reviews and a big enthusiastic following online. BlueStar is a newcomer with several advantages for us.
First, its large open burners produce really high BTUs. I had hacked our previous stove to increase the heat by drilling larger orifices in the brass gas jets, but Blue Star’s high-heat burners came already engineered for a maximum flame of 22,000 BTUs. (Typical high burners are only 15K.) It could also simmer great. Second, the circular burner design features a ring which can easily lift out so that a wok (which needs super high heat) can seat perfectly near the jets. Third, the dials are analog, no fancy electronics to fail. Fourth, the cast iron grate above the burners forms a single uninterrupted plane so pots can be slid around easily, like a second work surface. Lastly, you have a choice of 200 custom colors for the stove. We went with a yellow to brighten up the kitchen. We’ve been using the BlueStar for a year and a half and really love the craftsmanship and intelligent placement of knobs, trays, switches. It’s super easy to keep clean as well.
There are plenty of far less expensive stoves that cook food. We’d been using one of those for years. In aiming for a life-time purchase of a high performing stove, with great user design, we found BlueStar offered the most for less compared to other high-end stove brands.
03/20/14BlueStar Prices vary depending on model
