Wolf DF606CG 60" Pro-Style Dual-Fuel Range
27 January 2010
“Mercy”
One of the better brands of kitchen appliances that I’ve not yet written about is Wolf. I’ve heard quite a bit about their line of kitchen ranges, but until now I’d simply not availed myself of an Internet search to see what the shouting was about. Well, sir! Let me just say that I came, I saw, I concurred!
It has been close to a decade now since Sub-Zero acquired Wolf in March 2000, but one of the things that makes that particular acquisition significant is that both companies share the same business philosophy: a steadfast refusal to compromise. If you’ve ever checked out Sub-Zero’s line of refrigerators, you know what I’m talking about.
Wolf has been just as innovative with their line of cooking equipment. For some seventy years Wolf has been THE line for professional cooking equipment for restaurants and hotels. More recently, though, they have made their expertise available to the serious in-home cook. And looking at the subject of today’s blog, it’s clear to me that only the serious cook need apply to purchase one of these babies.
Let’s start with the size of the unit because that just makes me drool. This range is sixty inches wide and features two ovens, six dual-stacked sealed burners, and an infrared griddle/charbroiler. Both ovens are 4.5 cubic feet and are self-cleaning. More than that, there are ten different ways of cooking on this range, starting with bake, roast, and broil, then branching out to convection modes, bake stones and dehydrating. That’s pretty mind-boggling for a “chef” like me. In our home, we basically just burn it!
All kidding aside, though, the Wolf line in general, and the DF606CG model kitchen range in particular, really do have a lot to offer to the serious cook, beginning with the side-by-side oven arrangement. In the early years of our marriage, I tried a Thanksgiving dinner that included homemade hot rolls, but the results were not good. Hot rolls go in the oven when they’ve proofed, and matching that timing to a turkey that baked at its own rate was less than satisfactory. The turkey dried out waiting for the hot rolls to go in the oven-a problem I solved with lots of gravy-but the better solution would have been a second oven that enabled me to do these things independently of each other, rather than consecutively.
Finally, I should really point out that the DF606CG model comes in five different configurations, using different arrangements of their griddle, charbroiler, and French top, the last being one of the more remarkable ideas I’ve come across. The 15,000 BTU French Top is an optional feature that provides a 22″ cooking surface with concentric rings that allow for the surface to expand with the heat while remaining flat. What is particularly intriguing about it, though, is that these rings provide thermal breaks in the cast iron that distribute the heat in a graduated intensity, hottest in the center and coolest around the edges. In actual use, it means you can start a sauce of some sort in the center of the French Top, get it going the way you want, and then when you want it to simmer for a bit, you just push the pan to the outside of the French Top. You can also have a number of pans with varying heat requirements going at one time.
And Wolf has been just as innovative with the range design itself. One of the features I found myself liking was the way the control panel pivots out of the way when it’s not needed, providing a flat range front. And now, instead of approximating an oven temperature of 350 degrees-because that’s what you’re doing, really, when you set the knob between 300 and 400-you can simply dial 350 on the digital oven knob. Oh, it’s a changing world, it really is. Things ain’t what they used to be.
Joseph
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