Browse Forums Kitchen Corner 1 Mar 10, 2008 9:53 am We do a lot of wok cooking (use the oven less than once a fortnight). Our current house has a fixed rangehood (ducted to exterior) with no overhead cupboards. Rangehood needs cleaning quite frequently. Surrounding areas can also get dirty easily.
In our new house, we are thinking about having a slide-out rangehood fitted under a set of overhead cabinets. But ... I expect that slide-out rangehoods will have more gaps, etc that oil can get to, and thus be much harder to clean than a fixed rangehood. Would this be correct? Will a fixed hood or a canopy-type hood be better? We are also concerned that the overhead cabinets will get very dirty also. So, anyone with experience that can give some pointers for a kitchen design that is easy to clean? Thanks. PS: One thing that I'll be doing for sure is to get a rangehood with high airflow rate. Chris Re: Asian-style cooking --- design to keep kitchen clean 2Mar 10, 2008 10:08 am Hey Chris
I would go with a fixed rangehood with excellent suction! I come from an Asian background and we also do lots of wok cooking. The easiest grease cleaners I've found: * rangehood internal fat screens - run through the dishwasher * cupboards - fill spray bottle with 1/4 cloudy ammonia, rest with water You can buy cloudy ammonia from the cleaning aisle of big supermarkets. I used to buy expensive sprays to remove grease - but this works just as well (we had 2-pak cupboards) and is dirt cheap for about $3 a bottle of cloudy ammonia. After 4 years - we're in! Re: Asian-style cooking --- design to keep kitchen clean 3Mar 10, 2008 5:42 pm Hi Chris,
It is pretty much a given that any form of cooking using high temperatures, water and lots of volatiles is going to spread around a fair level of grease/grime, and that any rangehood deisgn you use is going to require regular cleaning. If you are going for wall units in your new design I would definitely recommend that they incorporate some sort of bulkhead that takes them to the ceiling, making sure that there are no horizontal surfaces above the cabinets for grime to collect. Having said that, you can expect the undersides of the wall units to get dirty along the way as well, and the only real solution is either don't have any or get used to cleaning them intermittently. In terms of rangehoods I would be looking at the unit which has the largest airflow possible - and you will quite possibly find that this will end up being a canopy hood. A slideout hood might have a few more cleanable areas, but does tend to have a better coverage of the cooking area than the fixed hoods, as they can be pulled out to different points depending on the needs of the job. Most modern hoods are very easy to take apart for cleaning, with many componants being dishwasher safe. Fixed hoods have the disadvantage of always being "out there"...we call them head bangers. For my money I would go with a dirty big canopy and maybe even consider backing it up with a couple of ceiling mounted recessed extractor fans, maybe centred more over the rest of your kitchen - these will serve to collect some of the vapours which escape form the rangehood coverage. Have a look at a few of the designs on the market - ask the salespeople to show you how the filters and assorted componantry come out for cleaning and think how you would feel using that particular design. Cheers, Earl Re: Asian-style cooking --- design to keep kitchen clean 5Mar 10, 2008 9:11 pm You might think about having the surrounding overhead cabinets at the same height as the range hood.
Range hoods are usually placed at about 600mm from the benchtop and the wall cabinets are about 455mm. Consider having the wall cabinetsraised up to 600mm from the b/top. It creates that minimalist look and can look very good. It wil also gather less oil on the underside of the cabinets. Oh and remember, you get what you pay for. If you want a good one be prepared to pay for it. Re: Asian-style cooking --- design to keep kitchen clean 6Mar 11, 2008 7:22 am we went for a powerful slideout one about 8 yrs ago. if one likes to use a flaming hot wok it turns everything grey-black above and its hard to clean the grooves where the rangehood slides.
Plan for next house (frame stage now) is - Schweigen twin fan canopy ducted to exterior . schweigen has 4 small stainless steel filters that are dishwasher safe. so, easy to clean as well -Outdoor kitchen for all wok and flaming sizzler type cooking(alfresco) Also, dont bother getting vinyl wrap cabinet doors as they peel due to oily fumes. better off with laminate(cheap) or 2pack(expensive) Google on Schweigen to get the distributor for your city. good luck Re: Asian-style cooking --- design to keep kitchen clean 7Mar 11, 2008 7:48 am I must say I agree with the outdoor cooking bit - if I want to be really flaming the wok up or doing any deep frying I use the Wok attachment on the BBQ or the small camping gas burner we have and this will be on the alfresco in the new house ... if its just a quick stir fry then I use the indoor burner ....
We will also be not having overhead cabinets up close to the rangehood to prevent any splatter or possible future pealing ..... we will be going a permanent rangehood so it will take up more space than the fold away versions... I'm also now thinking of not going with the stand alone 900mm oven due to the gap and possible food mess that may drop down the side of the oven when cooking - especially that sauce splatter that always happens with wok cooking - I'm leaning more now towards and underbench 900 oven and cooktop for more easy cleaning as there is no gap in the bench top (but I'm torn about this as I love the stand alones but I hate cleaning!) I will also be adding an ceiling extraction fan in the kitchen anyway - I miss mine in our current kitchen...... I also second the recommendation byStonecutter on the cloudy amonia degreaser recipe - I use this and it works fabulously! Fiona The Dulux colour consultants are awesome. If you show them the photos they should be able to figure it out for you straight away 1 1603 Our Bondi Greenwall was impressive from day one with advanced lush plants to provide a wow factor to this recently renovated living area. The boundary was less than 1… 0 15290 Thank you so much for the effort. We will use it to talk with builder. We also had idea of building duplex instead and seeking suggest ions. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=106744 11 13777 |