The Answer To a Prayer
Written: Jun 30 '04 (Updated Jul 02 '04)
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Pros: Plenty of cooking and baking capacity,attractive,sturdy
Cons: Lower oven requires bending, control panel is complicated, broiler less than optimum
The Bottom Line: Recommended highly for serious cooks in small spaces
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| evilgrandma1's Full Review: Maytag Gemini MGR6772BDS Stainless Steel Gas Range |
When we bought our house, it had an old Magic Chef with top and bottom ovens. When we redid our kitchen, we bought the great grandchild of that stove. Food was produced in great quantity for our five kids and many guests. When our second stove died, however, we were really stuck: Magic Chef had discontinued that model. We purchased a single oven stove, which was completely inadequate. We needed that second oven. We considered just buying a tiny cheap electric range just for the oven, or maybe a countertop convection oven, but that didn't seem to be a good solution.
As time progressed, grandchildren arrived and need increased, there were two options for double oven stoves: a "professional" style range, with its huge energy consumption, huge price tag and footprint to match, or the Maytag Gemini. We would periodically go to Home Depot Expo to ogle the professional stoves, but realized that in our kosher kitchen requiring separate dishwashers and cabinetry for meat and dairy, there simply wasn't room for a big stove, period. We also needed a stove with a Sabbath mode. This would allow us to override the 12 hour automatic shut off feature on new stoves.
We were intrigued by the compact Maytag Gemini. It was very attractive and seemed to be solidly built. We own a Maytag dryer and adore it. The Gemini's design was clever. Instead of an oven with a warming or storage drawer (that nobody uses anyway) underneath, there is a main oven on the bottom with a warming drawer-sized oven/broiler on top. The top oven is the same depth, but slightly narrower than the big oven.
My main concern was the height of the top oven. I do a lot of baking: cakes,cookies, pies, breads. Maytag's advertising suggested using this oven to warm up frozen pizza, which is not in my repetoire.
After purchasing this range, we put it through its paces. Room in the top oven wasn't a problem. There was ample room for two 9" cake pans, two 9x13 inch pans, or a commercial 15"x18" sheet pan. Pushing the envelope, I baked two perfect tube cakes simultaneously in it, although the manual recommended against doing this. Cookies came out a bit too brown on the bottom, probably because the rack is too close to the heat.
The broiler is problematic. You must use the broiler pan that comes with the stove. It's one of those two piece pans with holes in the top. It's a major nuisance to clean. We used a disposable broiling pan with ridges twice and it caught fire both times. In order to turn on the broiler, you must first preheat the top oven and then switch to broil, which seems unnecessarily complicated
A nice feature is the keep warm setting in the top oven. Food remains moist and just the right temperature. The bottom oven is a bit low, but bakes well and has a convenient easy sliding rack. The drawback of this rack is that our kitchen is not perfectly level and the rack can slide out on its own sometimes.
The two smaller back burners on the rangetop needed adjusting, as too much air was getting into the gas air mixture. The flame had some yellow color and the burners had a tendency to go out on their own when left on a simmer setting. Fortunately, there is a safety feature that automatically keeps gas from escaping when the flame goes out.
The two very hot burners in front make for quick boiling and sauteeing (no more stewed stir fry). No problem with those. All the burners are sealed, and the caps are well designed so they can be removed and replaced without worrying whether they're in exactly the right position. The surface of the cooktop is nice and flat. Burner controls are on the side. There are two large enameled cast iron double burner grates that fit together well to make a continuous grate. Heavy pots can be slid easily from one burner to another. The cooktop is roomy too. I use a lot of 9 inch wide saute pans, and the cooktop can accomodate four of them at once.
Cleaning the oven involves nothing more than pushing the "clean" and "auto set" pads on the control panel. Both ovens are self cleaning. The cooktop gets very dirty as in any working kitchen. If spills are not allowed to sit on the rangetop, they can be cleaned with a rag and soapy water. If the oven is on, dirt will get baked on and Barkeepers Friend is required. So far, the finish has held up well to the scrubbing.
The control panel is a bit complicated. There are separate electronic controls for the top and bottom ovens. To bake, push "bake" and either key in the temperature desired, or press "auto set" for 350. Press "auto set again" and the temperature will increase in 25 degree increments. Interesting, but again, unnecessarily complicated. There is a digital crawl display that tells you what to do. Very high tech. The timer is a nuisance. To set the time, push "time" then key in the time. If you're food is done before the timer goes off, you can't just shut off the timer, you have to reset it to zero.
All in all, we are very pleased with our range. We have nearly professional range capacity at a fraction of the price and space.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1650
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Epinions.com ID:
evilgrandma1
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Reviews written: 3
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