Ready for your American Range Review? While the kitchen is full of appliances and gadgets galore, the piece that’s most central to the kitchen’s function, the piece that’s most integral to the home chef’s craft, is the range. It’s where pasta is boiled, where hearty casseroles are baked, where pan-fried chicken is cooked to crispy perfection, and where those healthy vegetables children cunningly attempt to avoid are prepared.
Therefore, choosing a range for one’s kitchen is one of the most important and perhaps most daunting decisions for the home. Brands such as Viking and American Range have earned quite a reputation for their commercial ranges, but how does one decide between the two?
Two popular choices for 30” professional style ranges are the Viking VGIC5304BSS and the American Range ARROB-430. Both brands boast a presence in the commercial kitchen market, and their residential ranges were designed with many of the same quality and convenient features of commercial ranges. Here the details of our American Range Review.
The Cooktop Surface:
Table of Contents
Both the Viking and the American Range models feature high-power open burners. While many home appliance companies manufacture sealed burners for easy cleaning, the Viking VGIC5304BSS and the American Range ARROB-430 feature open burners, standard in commercial kitchens. Open burners get hotter faster and have larger flames. A drip tray below catches any drips or crumbs that fall into the burner.
The Viking open burner range features four burners that heat up to 15,000 BTUs. (One BTU heats about 1 pound of water by 1°F.) All burners can also be turned down to a steady, slow simmer with Viking’s VariSimmer setting. The four burners on the American Range 30” gas range have different heating capabilities. Two heat up to 25,000 BTUs, one heats up to 18,000 BTUs, and another heats up to 12,000 BTUs. This provides a little more variety on the cooktop surface for dishes that require extremely high or low heat levels.
In addition to their powerful heating options, both cooktops feature commercial-grade cast iron grates. However, the Viking 30” range offers a continuous surface that allows pots and pans to slide from one burner to another.
Additionally, for convenience and thorough cooking, both ranges include re-ignition systems in case a flame goes out while cooking. The ARROB-430 features a pull-out tray vgi
for easy cleaning of cooking messes that drip through the open burners.
American Range Review: The Ovens:
Both the American Range and the Viking range feature powerful, large-capacity ovens with several baking, convection heating and broiling options. The American Range oven is slightly larger, but the Viking beats the American Range in power, by a narrow margin. The American Range oven is 4.3 cubic feet, and the Viking oven is 4 cubic feet.
The American Range bake burner reaches up to 28,000 BTUs, while the Viking oven reaches up to 30,000 BTUs. Similarly, the American Range oven’s infrared broiler reaches up to 17,000 BTUs, while the Viking oven’s infrared broiler reaches up to 18,000 BTUs. So you can opt for a little more oven space in the American Range, or more power with the Viking.
Weighing the Options:
Both the Viking and the American Range residential ranges feature powerful stove-top and baking options, easy cleaning, and reliable convenient features. When it comes to pricing, American Range beats out Viking by about $500 (with rebates). However, Viking offers a few more conveniences such as the continuous grate surface on the cooktop.
If our 30” pro range review still leaves you wondering which range is best for you, give us a call, and we’ll help you review the product features in detail so you can make a well-informed decision for your home.
