What Are The Key Features To Look For In A Gas Stove?

Thanksgiving dinners, birthday blowouts, or Super Bowl watch parties aren’t the same without some good home-cooked meals served on the table! Even on a normal day when you’re mentally drained after a long day at work, cooking is definitely the activity to help you clear your head and eliminate any built-up stress or tension. 

What better way to produce mouthwatering meals than having a great cooking set-up? The perfect motivation to use your kitchen is your actual set-up. You wouldn’t want to get your hands all dirty and be so physically exhausted when you can use efficient and convenient tools to make your life easier. Of course, the show’s main star is the actual heat source – the gas stove!

Gas Stoves are the Best Fit

Person holding a pan on the stove

When setting up the kitchen or planning an investment in kitchen equipment, gas stoves can’t be overlooked as they literally bring your food on fire! They can be installed anytime and provide years of service without experiencing the need to pay for expensive repairs or maintenance. Stoves date back to the ancestral times when they were even built from clay, as we’ve seen in the movies. Some stoves were built onto the kitchen, while some had big attachments to the stove to control the fire. Lucky for us that present-day stoves can produce continuous heat without any arduous installations! 

While there are also electric induction stoves on the market, we can see that the demand for gas stoves never really goes down. Gas stoves come with an open flame that reduces eye strain, so you also don’t have to worry about the inconvenience of smelling smoke and feeling it in your eyes. They are economical in nature and more effective in cooking your meals fast! Keep in mind that you can also choose a gas stove based on your needs, so make sure to check out the features of this must-have kitchen equipment before buying it!

Here are a bunch of features that you need to look into in picking the perfect gas stove for your needs:

Key Features to Look for in a Gas Stove:

Size

You can’t be able to do proper meal preparation when your stove isn’t in the right size to fit your pans and pots. To avoid spillages and accidents, you would also want to ensure that it would fit the space available for it. Make sure to get your measurements right from the width to the depth and height! You wouldn’t want your stove sitting too low or sticking out too much. Having the right size ensures convenience and as a prevention from possible accidents!

Usage and Source

One significant benefit of having a gas stove is ensuring its maximum functionality. When you have power outages in your neighborhood, you would still need to cook, but that is hard to do when your stove depends on electricity. This can be a persistent problem as many places have common power outages, especially in disaster-prone areas. Needless to say, you have to consider the functionality of your stove. LPG can usually power gas stoves, so ensure easy access to LPG tanks or other sources of combustible gas that could power your stove. 

Temperature Settings

Hand adjusting the temperature knob of gas stove to lower heat

Heat can either be your greatest foe or friend when it comes to the type of cooking you’re doing. You need to be able to control heat either when you’re boiling, frying, or simply heating the pan. Every food item would require a distinct temperature to be cooked properly. Different types of dishes, additionally, require varying temperatures! An important feature of the gas stove is its thermostat adjustments, as having control of the heat will make or break your meal preparation. You should be able to adjust the temperature settings with one touch of the knob, so make sure to find that feature in the gas stove you’re looking for! 

Cleanability of the stove surface

Hand cleaning the glass stove with sponge

One of the most common pet peeves is a kitchen equipment that’s hard to clean and maintain. You need a stove with a cooking top that you can easily clean with one wipe of your washcloth. Make sure that the stainless steel body of the cooking top can be easily cleaned! Remember that there are stoves that look attractive from the outside but quickly get blotched and stained. You don’t have to face such problems while cleaning stainless steel cooking stoves or glass tops. 

Safety Features

Cooking requires caution against gas leaks, kitchen fires, and gas explosions. Watch out for the anti-tip feature that prevents the gas stove from sliding off your countertop and causing physical injury. There’s also an auto shut-off function for when there’s no flame detected, and the gas stove will turn off automatically. This feature is especially helpful in preventing gas leaks and saving energy costs. One special safety feature is also the button lock! This feature helps lock the controls on your stove so it can limit its use and doesn’t turn on through touches by pets or your little children. 

Burners

Four burners with blue flames equidistant to one another

Whether you’re cooking for yourself or your family regularly, you have to consider the number of burners depending on the number of dishes you cook or the number of people you cook for. If there are 4 adults in the household, a gas stove with 4 or more burners might be the best option!

Big pans and pots will be hard to use simultaneously when the distance between your burners is so close. When the burners are too close to each other, you’d have a hard time using big equipment. A good stove has enough space between its burners to ensure the maximum use of several pots and pans without colliding with each other. 

Control Knobs

Hands turning the control knobs of a gas stove to ignite the heat

Control knobs are essential to your gas stoves as they bring your stoves to power! You can control the burners through these rotary switches, so it would be a great idea to check these knobs when getting a stove. It’s important to note that a faulty gas stove can result from the uneven matching of control knobs. The next time you choose a gas stove, make sure to look for one that has properly-sized control knobs and clear pointers around the knob. They also have to be easy-grip and, of course, easy to use!

Any commercial restaurant or home requires varying kinds of equipment for meal preparation; the one thing that remains constant, however, is a gas stove that is cost-efficient and effective. Make sure to get one that will help make your meal preparations easier for you by remembering these features!