I'm also looking at the Caldera as well as the Bluestar and Monogram cooktops. With the Caldera, can you slide your pans from one burner to the next like you can on the Bluestar or do you have to lift and place them? Also, with the Caldera now many simmer burners do you have? Anyone with a Caldera willing to take pictures with large pans on their cooktop to show us how much it can hold since it seems there is no where one can go to look at the Caldera cooktops and buying sight unseen is a bit scary? It's so wonderful to have this forum and to read the enthusiasm so many have for their cooking appliances!

I have posted a number of times but don't mind doing so again as I love my Caldera. Have been using it for 1 1/2 years now and never regret getting it "sight unseen". Perfect performance, extremely easy to clean, continuous grates, simmer on all burners, grates need to only be wiped with a cloth. 18K center burner. I have the 5 burner 36". Here is a pic with our big wok on the center burner.

We have a 1400 cfm Tradewind remote blower with inline silencer since we have a Miele built in deep fat fryer to the left of the Caldera. If you would like more info or pics please ask. Caroline

Wow, Caroline, great pics. Looks like some real cooking is going on at your house, so it's great to hear from you. It does look like there is room even with you big wok for other pans. You can read the specs but it really is great to see the pics. Was it easy to install? What size gas line do you need? I have read many of your posts about the Caldera, that is what sparked my interest. Thanks for being so willing to share your experience. Since you obviously do Wok cooking, apparently you are happy with 18K and are not wishing you had the 22K burner of a Bluestar. Do you find the 18K is powerful enough for all of your cooking needs?

I have the Caldera 30 inch cooktop - recently installed in my as yet unfinished kitchen remodel (no pictures yet!). We have begun cooking on it and love, love, love it! The center burner is @ 9 inches wide and my large pasta pot (12") does not encroach much over on to the other burners - thus all five burners are useable at the same time. My largest frying pan is very stable regardless of the burner - and yes, you can slide from burner to burner. There are small rubber feet on the undersides of the grates that make them very stable and there are only 3 grates (each of the two burners on each side is served by one long continuous grate, with the center grate separate). My small pans are very secure on this stove compared to my old range which had 4 small grates. 18K is twice the power of my old range - and frankly, I cannot see the added advantage of having 22K (bringing a pot of water to boil a few seconds faster?) I chose Caldera for the price, the versatility of the burners and their arrangement, the heft/stability, the ease of cleaning and the overall design - the Bluestar looked too commercial and large for my small kitchen and it's price was twice as high. People have said good things about the Bluestar, but I am very glad I went with the Caldera.

Tomalyse, thanks for all the info. Regarding those small rubber feet, I read in a couple of postings that they were coming off and the company was sending extra rubber feet to people for the future. Have they corrected that problem and have you had an issue with that?

I am sorry not to get back til now. Let's see,,, the rubber feet are not possible to put back on the way they came from the company. I have a sack of them but they remain off of 1/2 of the feet. There are tiny scratches on the ss but I posted a pic on another thread and they can't be seen. I will super glue them on ...one day. As to size of gas line ..it is I assume 1/2 in. as that is standard and we already had gas lines in the area so it was no problem at all. As to size of burners...2 are 20" x10" grids over 2 burners and the big one is 15" square !! You can fit anything on it...including the 16" wok. Nope you do not need 22K BTU. We get this sucker so hot that it caramelizes anything that we need in the wok. Also when we use the Lodge Logic grill pan the food tastes as if it was cooked outside. My son who is a chef refused to believe that the grilled salmon was not cooked outside...you could taste the smoky taste it got so hot.

As a tip to serious wok users...fire up your outdoor charcoal grill ( not gas or electric) snuggle your steel wok in the coals and have everything ready...you will have the real deal as far as true Chinese authentic stir fry.

Trailrunner, so if I understand correctly, the scratches from the missing feet are on the ss under the grates where no one can see anyway. Do the missing feet cause any imbalance for the grates so that pots and pans are not perfectly flat on the grate? Also when you were thinking about your cooktop purchase did you consider any cooktops with grills or do you do all of your grilling outside?

mama: yes the grates still sit evenly. they are very heavy plus the feet are all 4 missing from one of the grates and are smoothed flat on the others. The scratches are not possible to see unless you lift the grate off of the stove and look for them.

I briefly looked at grills built into the cooktops. I looked at every single brand of gas cooktop there is , also induction. I read everything and looked at all the comments here. What I found was that many folks are consumed by hi BTU's and knobs and open /closed burners and brand name. When I looked at what others were buying and paying for I could not wrap myself around the brands that were so prevalent on this forum. For 850 I got a fabulous cooktop. I read on here all the time about cleaning issues. I wipe mine off with the dishcloth and it takes 30 sec. Done. As far as BTU's there is an upper limit that you just can't use. Food burns and you don't need that high of heat once the pan gets hot . I suppose you could heat a pan of water faster but I so rarely do that , except for pasta that it isn't significant at least for me. As to the grill. I know others have built in but when my son, the chef , and I talked he said I would be sorry if I got one built in. He uses the Lodge Logic cast iron grill pan in the restuarant. I will tell you that it gets HOT and you cannot tell the difference form cooking outside. And you don't have the charcoal taste...:) And you have all your burners free to do what you want. So that is my .02 worth. I will be glad to answer any other questions or take more pics. If you search you can see the pics of the scratches on the other thread. CAroline

Can anyone tell me where is the cheapest place to get the 30" gas cooktop? I see some people have been successful is getting it for as low as $800.00

Google does not give you much and everyone is listing it at the list price. How much is everyone paying for thiers ?

Thanks

Ok, I hate mine right now. The electronic ignition is not working and I have only used the range twice. Weekend - there is nobody to call for service. Eurochef is closed and Al at Caldera has the answering machine on. I have to light it with a match and it keeps clicking the whole time the burners are on and even after I turn them off.

rayna. Have you tried taking all the parts off and making sure they are aligned correctly? I know someone else posed that probelm and when I explained about lining them up again it fixed the problem. Just rotate the parts til they are lined up and make sure the flame is even when it comes up ...when you wipe the cooktop they can get bumped out of line. Please let meknow if this fixes it. c

sorry to hear about your troubles, Rayna. Mine is working fine (I am waiting for the new grate, but am still managing to cook up a storm!)

IMHO, Eurochef is worse than useless. In more than 6 calls to them (4 trying to buy a darn stove), I have NEVER received a response. Never.

Does the electronic igniter have a battery with it? (I haven't read the manual yet)

Sounds like a misadjusted set of contacts on the igniter, if it continues to click.

Didn't you get it from a local source?

Hope it is resolved SOON!

Nica

Thanks, Nica. My cleaning person may have tried to do something while I was away (I had used one burner twice for scrambled eggs and then left to teach at a conference). The range was absolutely clean, but who knows??

I called my local dealer, who doesn't carry Caldera but deals with Eurochef and ordered it for me. They were very responsive, said they'd call Eurochef on Monday and get a service person out here ASAP. Meantime, we're back to takeout - LOL.

Caroline - I will wait till the service person comes, I think, rather than to fool around with this thing. I am under deadline pressure for work and will just coast.

Caroline - service for the Caldera will arrive on Wednesday. We'll see wht develops. I hope it will be okay - I would hate to send it back and have to get a GE. Keep your fingers x'd.

Rayna,

Any updates? DH just read your post and was pretty sure he knows the problem - a bad board (blech).

What did the service guy say?

Nica

Update today, mommycooks -- and Caroline. Everything is fine now. The problem was that my contractor did not install it correctly; he left out the pressure regulator, which was essential for lighting the stove. Without it, fire hazard - the stove would not light and the service guy told me that lighting it with a match (which I was doing) could have caused an explosion.

The service guy turned off the gas supply and returned this morning to install the cooktop correctly. Because this was an installation problem, not covered by warranty - so I paid for the service guy to install it and told my contractor I am taking it off what I owe him. That is fine with him.

The range doesn't have a board, since it is gas. So that makes it really simple. The service guy explained everything to me and the great thing about this Caldera is that if the burner accidently goes out for any reason, it will relight itself. He blew out the flame and sure enough, it relit itself.

So, mystery solved and I am happy. However, tonight, I cooked on the grill - LOL.

Yes! I am so glad for you . . . it is really a great cooktop and I am looking forward to hearing about your cooking successes!

Thanks for updating . . .

I am so glad that all is resolved and that your contractor , who seems to be a great guy, was not insulted by his mistake. Also VERY glad you were not airborne during the lighting of the cooktop !! Have fun and cook lots of good stuff. c

This is a very late posting - but just revisited and saw all the comments about the missing feet. When ours arrived, 4 of the feet were missing. I called the appliance store (in Berkeley CA) who called the distributor (@ 50 miles away). He called the next day to say that a large batch of cooktops had gone out without them from the factory by mistake. He arranged to come on that weekend to fix. He did and we have now used the stove for more than 6 months and love it still!

I got a bag of the feet in the mail 2 years ago but have never been able to get them on since the old ones have tiny remains in the hole and I can't get that out . The new ones have a "foot" on them that has to be stuffed into the hole. A mystery to me how to accomplish that. If you have an idea I would love to hear it.

Cooktop is still perfect to cook on and I wouldn't ever go to another brand. c

I am interested in a new cooktop. My Jenn-aire is pretty old. I have looked at many brands but am intrigued by the 30 inch Caldera. Would you buy another or would you go with a different brand?

I just joined this forum so I could learn more about this cook top. I have tried to contact some of you directly, but I may not have succeeded. Apologies, if for some this is repetitious.

Based on the web-based information, including your collective enthusiasm, this cook top seems to fit our needs. We plan to buy a house whose kitchen we wish to change. The existing stove is an electric glass top with a convection oven. That top is not my first choice, but it is new and I like the idea of a convection oven. We think the adjoining kitchen counter is big enough to accommodate a second cook top, perhaps a 36 incher, but 30" is better. I want a high powered center burner. Centrality is good because the location would diminish spills and splatters from getting on the kitchen counter itself. The Caldera 30" seems uniquely to suit our needs.

The major design problem is that a large wok, for instance, might block other burners. And we do not have the space or money for a dedicated wok burner. I do know that our current four burner electric stove in the house from which we are moving would not accommodate a 15" wok in the center without impinging on all the other burners. True if the burners were to be placed closer to the external corners, the problem would diminish, but it would not disappear. Since we do plan to keep the current glass 4 burner that is not a serious drawback, but I am curious to learn about your own experiences.

The more serious problem is that Caldera has gone missing. I have tried all their web-based contacts, phone numbers and email address. The email address elicited no reply. The phone numbers have been shut. Their most recent address in Stowe, Vermont, is now the location of an electric lighting company. I did locate a dealer on eBay who is apparently now carrying the top I want for about $840. The salesman who answered the phone did not specialize in Caldera and his colleague who knows more was out for the day. However he thought they had been taken over and moved to NY state, but the confirmation of this must await the return of the specialist colleague. He did think that the warranties were still valid.

One of the appeals of the company was that Stowe is only a few hours drive from where I live in western Massachusetts so the manufacturer would be near-by, but now I do not know where they are and if they still exist. By the way I even tried to track down Al Shute - - I believe the customer service Al at Caldera - - and his home phone is also disconnected. So they seem to have done a complete disappearing act.

The absence of any updated and corrected information on their website is not reassuring, but websites in general do get notoriously out of date, even for flourishing and growing concerns.

So, addressing my questions specifically to trailrunner, tomalyse, mommycooks, raynag, the Caldera owners on this thread, do you know what has become of Caldera? Have the new owners maintained the standards of the old? Do they still in any way exist? And if so, what is their service?

More on the current state of Caldera Cook Tops.

I just got off the phone with a dealer who told me that EuroChef in New York City now distributes (and manufactures??) them.

Any experience with EuroChef?