This is why I’ve never even considered a hob griddle. I think I’m better off pulling out the old electric ($10 in 1997). It is even heating. I’ve got 4 burners on the stove I can set to whatever heat I’d like. Surface area, even heat and what I generally look for in the griddle.
The only thing I’ve ever won in my life was a Blackstone flat top. I only won it because I was the only person there to claim a prize, and the nice gal asked me if I wanted it, since the none of the winning tickets were there to claim it. It’s okay, but since I’m living the empty nest life, I only use it when company comes around. When I need to, though, I can make a ton of potatoes or whatever on that thing.
I think we’re a touch spoiled. I recall the cookware the family I lived with in Ecuador used. We’re pretty spoiled.
I am not sure yet. I will first need to buy a lottery ticket. (I never have so far.). Then I need to win. Then I need to buy a house with a larger kitchen. Once those things are done, I can take delivery. I have lately noticed more and more outdoor flat tops, more like barbecues. Maybe I should have kept that giant Dexter spatula!
I have a steel version of a large griddle intended for use over gas. I bought it when I built a large chuckwagon box for hunting camp. I used it a bit (How many hunting trips can you go on with a 125-pound box?).
Anyway, it’s well thought out, what with turned up edges, a drain trough and handle. It’s about 3/16" thick. But the most interesting aspect of it is that it has a diffuser plate welded to its underside, intended to moderate the inevitable center hotspot. It makes it more even than it would have been, but it’s still no great shakes.
When I was involved in hyperconductive cookware development, we prototyped a double griddle to demonstrate what evenness was attainable over a wide area. They were about 13" x 21" x 1/8", and the coldest points were within 5F of the hottest point, no matter where you heated it. I still have one somewhere.
Yeah, well, when someone gaslights that hotspots are good, and any real cook doesn’t mind them (implying anyone who considers them bad can’t cook), that buzz deserves to be put down.
This is turning into you saying for the thousandth time that equipment doesn’t matter. I’ll spare you revisiting the next, tired red herring of saying equipment isn’t everything. It’s not, and no one said it was.
I was given one once, maybe 50 years ago, for filling out a questionnaire. I bought a case off beer and invited my friends over. Then I filled out another questionnaire and was given an instant ticket. $5.00!! Never have bought one, though.
I’ve been conditioned to think of a flat top as and outdoor tool I use when it’s really hot out, or I have a company over. Other than that, just sits on it’s little table while I grill with my friend Smokey Joe.
The technology can theoretically boost native conductivity of any material by a factor of 10. We never attained that, but passed 1,300 W/mK in aluminum.
People should understand that this video was shot with the chef using a target top, designed specially for zone cooking, not for griddle use.
It’s literally a-kin to the old solid fuel ranges, on which most temperature adjustments were made by moving the pan nearer to or farther from the firebox.
If one were to put ipse’s new steel griddle stop this target hob, what we would find is a slightly muted hotspot.
I still have the Monarch wood cookstove, good memory. Sadly, it’s in mothballs.
Know anyone who wants one? Comes with a lot of OEM parts and accessories for coal, and a stovetop oven (the great grandaddy of today’s toaster ovens). Vintage 1905 gridiron, waffle and timbale irons, too.
