Exactly. As another perspective, with sealed burners, I always felt
like I *had* to keep it pretty clean, or it didn't look right. With
open burners, the grates burners, and surrounding surface take on a
"patina" that just says "this cooktop is used for cooking, not for
looking". To my eye, this is actually more attractive than a
pristine sealed unit. Now, cleanup is basically nothing more than
wiping up loose food particles and getting the major grease film.

I've never scrubbed the grates, burners or surrounding surfaces, and
have certainly not gone to the lengths of using oven cleaner or the
self-cleaning cycle in the oven to get these parts clean.

Of course, this is all based on the base colors being dark - which is
certainly the case with a Garland. If I had an open burner in a light
color scheme, then that might be the worst of both worlds.



kylet@ s h o r e . n e t (Kyle Tucker) wrote in message
>
> Well it's a choice if you want to just cook or worry about how clean
> the cooktop is. Picture a boiling over lobster pot and you've got 2
> or 3 other things going on. With sealed burners, you're going to have
> high tide all over your work area. With open burners, it just all falls
> through and you can worry about it after dinner, the next day or in 6
> months when you realize it's probably time to pull out the clean-out
> drawers to see what's grown down there.