Which stove broils the best?

[fan-of-fans]

I only use the broiler for melting and toasting cheese on subs, and sometimes for reheating french fries. My electric Hotpoint seems to broil pretty well.

Do gas ranges broil well from the blue flame? I know some makes use a ceramic or wire grid to provide radiant broiling from the gas flame.

Also, I have seen some electric ranges with a shield above the broiler element. Is this a reflector? I believe Caloric had an electric Ultra Ray broiler with a reflector on some electric ranges.

 

[ea56]

I love the broiler in my BOL GE Electric stove! The owners manual specifically recommeneds that the oven door remain CLOSED while broiling, which is contrary to most other stoves.

Because the oven door stays closed there is no smoke or odors when I broil. Because of this I use the broiler several times a week. There is no grease splattered on the stove and no odors in the house, and broiled chicken breasts, pork chops and ground round taste so much better than when cooked on the stove in a pan and the broiled meats are flavorful, juicy and tender.

Eddie

 

[norgeway]

Some will say

Gas doesent broil well...but I always liked it, the main reason is the flame eats up the smoke,,,but to be perfectly honest, I very rarely broil because I don't like a greasy splattered up oven.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Electric broils better than most plain gas oven burners because the glowing orange element provides more infrared heat. I have broiled successfully in a Western Holly because it had the aforementioned wire screen around the perimeter of the burner and when the burner was on high, it glowed orange to provide infrared heat. I have never broiled under Caloric's stainless steel Ultra Ray burner or Hardwick's ceramic Micro Ray burner but it would seem that they would perform as well as electric broiling. I have managed to snag on eBay two of the portable Caloric Ultra Ray picnic broilers from the 60s. They are beautifully made of steel with orange and black porcelain covering the whole body. They use the stainless steel burner with a shallow u-shaped screen over it running from front to back. It is called a Caloric ultra ray cub and was made at the time when Caloric offered their gas outdoor grill in the same orange and black porcelain shell. It has a wire loop on the back to hold the container of propane and a large bail-type carrying handle to get it from home to picnic. I don't know if the squeezy spark igniter included in one was original equipment or added by the owner.

The electric broiler units in ovens seem to work better with the metal reflectors. I have one for my GE self cleaning ovens that I lifted out for the self cleaning operations when I used them decades ago. Frigidaire ovens with their powerful broilers used reflectors in both their open coil and sealed rod broiling elements and gave great results. When Westinghouse used open coil broilers, they used a reflector and gave great results. In Frigidaire's 30 inch ranges, the wide oven used a 6 pass broiler element that generated so much heat that fat popping seemed to ignite in mid air but maybe it was the flame shooting down from the contact of the grease with the intensely hot element. It looked neat with the light off.

 

[turquoisedude]

I never did a lot of broiling before, but I  do now, with the 62 Flair's broiler.  I like the adjustable heat in particular for poultry - it always turns out perfectly.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Paul, do you use the Radiant Wall Broiler Pan?

 

[turquoisedude]

Tom, I do!  I am looking for a more complete one though. Mine is missing the original rack.

 

[firedome]

Not sure if best...

but Chambers with their big gas broiler/griddle that lifted up did very well!

 

[combo52]

Electric Broilers

Are usually more even over a larger area, The infra-red gas work very well but don't cover as large an area as most electric ones do.

 

Broiling is a great way to cook and with Self-Cleaning ovens who cares if it makes a little mess.

 

The best ever range broiler was Westinghouse's No-Turn-speed-Broiler where you placed the food on a rack between two heating elements so meat was cooked on both sides with over 6000 watts of heat.