I have the Miele built-in deep fat fryer as well as the 36" Caldera gas cooktop. We do LOTS of frying and stirfrying. The key , of course , is your vent system. I have a Tradewind 54" remote 1400 cfm hood liner. It is so quiet on the 2nd setting that I can listen to NPR from across the room while in use. This hood liner has to be cleaned...takes 10 min once a week, as the baffles are golden/brown with grease every Sunday night. I have yet to wipe down the wood hood surround except one time in 4 YEARS to prove that the grease goes into the baffles and then the odors etc go all the way out. My open shelves have never had a drop of grease on them...dust yes...this is 120 year old house after all .

If you get a hood sufficient to your cooking needs. If you mount it appropriately, if you TURN it on 5 min before you start to cook, if you let it run at least 10 min after you cease cooking...you will have a clean, quiet, odorless kitchen. Of course if you don't do this you will have grease on everything and your home will smell like week old fried onions LOL. Here are pics to help in your decision...

note where the HOGS go ( heat, odors,grease,steam )

HOGS go up !

not on the shelves you see over the sink. I hope this helps in your decision. It is better to have a larger hood CFM and use it on low or med ...a law of physics dicates that you will have turbulence in the duct and the HOGS come back at you ....so go big or be sorry. Also it is not necessary to have a hood wider than your cook area...you need to have enough CFM's to compensate and you need to mount the hood the right height...it takes a lot of figuring but believe me it is worth it. If I can answer any questions please just ask...email through GW if you like. c

first, i love your kitchen. second, i love that you can. third, holy freaking deep fryer! that thing is totally insane. you are definitely serious about your fat!!! i am interested...what do you fry in?

so do you think a 1200 cfm blower would be insufficient?

thanks, trailrunner!

Holy comoly, I think that if I used a 1200 cfm it would suck my windows in! The neighbors would know what I was cooking -- "Honey, look! Rita must be fryin' tonight -- their walls are bowed in again!" ; )

Funny, Trailrunner, when Sabjimata asked this question, I immediately thought of you. And loosened my top button on my jeans.

Love the "HOGS" reference! I think it should become an official Kitchens Forum acronym! Maybe HOGSS (Heat, Odors, Grease, Steam, Smoke)...the smoke is added for those of us who aren't as good a cook as you and your family TrailRunner!

rjr you are a HOOT...why do you think I have the "trailrunner" name ???? I was on my bike every day this week, ridin to the gym and back...went a second time this afternoon...gotta work off the french fries !

buehl ...haha...see those steaks, there was a little smoke in there otherwise you don't get that great outdoor taste!!

sabjimata: are you going to be stirfrying, have a gas cooktop with high BTU's, a fryer ? These are all things that make a difference. As I said before you want more CFM's than you are going to use. I never use mine on high...the smell comes back in, remember the turbulence in the duct. Buehl is right , the neighbors know what we are cookin every night...I can't smell it in the house at all :) My contractor had laughed and said I would need to wear weights in my shoes when I used the blower haha.

The fryer was DS1's idea as he and his wife are chefs. It has been great. We turn it on at lunch lots of times and in minutes we have hot homemade tortilla chips...they are so much better than the ones from the store and taste just like the ones from your best Mexican restaurant. It heats very quickly and returns to heat also very quickly. It is very easy to clean...has a drain hole inside the cab and I place a plastic bucket under and open the spigot and voila...empy,wipeout and close...refill. Takes 1 gallon of oil. We use peanut oil. If you always use peanut for frying and stirfrying you will have clean smoke free cooking as it has the highest temp range w/o burning. All Chinese cooks use it for that reason.

The key to frying w/o greasy food is....oil at right temp, clean oil, dry food before it goes into the oil. I am sure that is why we like our fryer so much is that we follow these rules. Please do ask if you have other ??? I will be glad to share. I have lots of pics of the fryer cooktop in use :)

OK, you are a Southerner, lol. Whatcha got in that fryer, bacon grease? Just kidding - I saw it's peanut oil. Seriously, How often do you clean the fryer? Surely you don't use a whole new gallon of oil each time you use it? And how do you disposed of old oil. I'm sorry - I think I've hijacked this thread. Is that OK with the OP?
Lisa

Hey lisa...of course OP will be pleased as all info is good info and I didn't address the questions you ask.

I wish I could afford leaf lard in the fryer but that ain't gonna happen ! We have found over the past 4 years of use that it depends on what you are frying in the oil as to how long it lasts. If I do calamari it won't last long so we do seafood a lot for a few days and then out it goes. The beauty of the deep fryer is that it does the same as the commercial fryer, in that the area below the heating element is the "cold zone" thus the stuff that falls down there does not burn and mess up the oil. If we are doing french fries and chips and non messy things then I leave the oil for weeks at a time. If we do fried chicken I do it or the seafood when I am planning on changing the oil anyway. With the heat that is generated , as in restaurants, there is no "growth" of bacteria etc in the oil as it stands.

As to disposal I take the oil, which I place in the new oil's jug, to a local restarant , and they dispose of it in their grease trap. I wish I could run my car on it !!!
Hope this answers the questions...let me know. c

Totally off subject but....what is the gorgeous color on the walls? I'm lovin it.

Hey allora, it is Thyme, an Olympic paint color made up in BM Regal Matte. I used almost all Olympic colors in the downstairs when we finished our remodel. The ones I chose are all in the same brochure that Lowes carries for Olympic, I think it is called Nature's colors...you can see it at Lowes. If you have other questions please ask. I am so glad you like it, thank you, c

Thanks. I'm off to Lowe's!!

Great looking kitchen, Trailrunner.

Do you mind saying how much you paid for your hood set up? I'm specifically interested in the hoodliner portion.

Thanks.

Hey wolfgang..no problem . The remodel was 4 yrs ago so of course things will be different but it is a wonderful setup. I love the Tradewind quality and after 4 years it is just as good as it was at the beginning. The baffles are very easy to clean and the efficiency plus quiet are worth the cost. Also no matter what the dealer says all blowers that are 1200 cfm and up are Thermador made. They may rebrand them but only Thermador makes the large blowers. I have the 1400 cfm. Ok here are the prices:

damper- fits 10" round pipe $50
noise reduction mounting clamp $39
duct silencer for 10" duct- $220
Thermador 1400 cfm ventilator - $669
3 speed control switch - $109
PSL754BFSS ( this is the 54" stainless steel pro liner with baffles ) - $950 so $2037 for the whole set up. The actual 10" duct is cheap and the install was $35 hr and they took maybe 1/2 day to do it. My cab guy built the wooden frame. Let me know if I can help with anyother questions. And THANK YOU !

Allora let me know what you decide about colors. c

Grease isn't the only issue; all kitchens have dust.

I completely love the look and ease of access of open shelving, but I very much don't love dusting and washing items that are just on display for the sake of display.

So my rule of thumb is: nothing out on counters or open shelving that doesn't get used at least once a week. That way, exposed items are getting washed regularly in the course of events -- and it's an easy-to-develop habit to swipe off the shelf when replacing them after use.

This applies to utensils in crocks, appliances, serving dishes, anything you might store out in the open.

Thanks so much Trailrunner.
I have one more question that I hope you can answer:

1) On a website (universal) for the Tradewind hood liner, it lists 1360 CFM in the specs. In your post, you include a hood liner and the Thermador blower as two different items. I'm confused as I thought for $1K+ (especially because it lists a CFM spec) that the Tradewind includes the blower.

I have the remote blower on my roof...I am thinking you are looking at a single unit that contains the whole works in it. I wanted the remote and the inline silencer...all to try and achieve the most quiet while getting a system that really sucked...LOL. You can get units with all in the one piece or go with the separate components...like a stereo. Hope this helps...ask away if it doesn't. Here is the web site where I got all my info...I have the PSL 54...look at the drop down box and you can read everything you ever wanted to know about inline silencer etc and see all the specs.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tradewind liner

About your assertion that running a high CFM fan on medium will outsuck a lower CFM fan on high. I'm not an engineer and this confuses me. I was thinking that if you have a 1400 max CFM hood running on medium, it will clear let's say 1,000 CFM. If you have a 1,000 CFM fan on high, it will also clear 1,000 CFM. The fan speed is the fan speed regardless of how maxed out the blower is, no? Aren't both fans working at the same speed and thus drawing up the same amount of air? I don't understand how just because one fan is working harder, it becomes less efficient. In car terms, it may be harder on an engine to run at 6,000 RPM to go 120 mph, but you aren't moving any slower than another car whose engine is spinning at 3,000 rpm to go 120 mph.
Thanks again for all your help.

Trailrunner.. Lovely,lovely kitchen...made me happy to see something so cool.
Question..buying a 36"Vulcan gas-6burners(Wolf is parent)..It has what would be a well used 13"D shelf at the top of a 48" rear rise stainless splash..
My range hood ONLY projects 19" with a 860CFM...It is a direct vent going straight out a wall to the exterior.I have 15 windows in 1000 sq/ft so there is a lot of cross ventilation if needed(don't know if that matters)....but, I'm scared the 13"shelf is going to interfere with air flow to the range hood...
I like the functionality of the shelf and don't want to lose it(it's a super small kitchen)....
Any thoughts?

fyi...

Be sure a hood does not suck too much air out; you need an air intake to compensate for the powerful hoods. I think the local code here is that one is needed if you are above 350 cfm but don't have the specs in front of me.