Bertazzoni Brass Burners and Dual-Ring Power Burners Explained

Burner specifications are where range cooker marketing gets vague. Here's what the parts actually do.

Why brass

Most gas hobs use aluminium burner caps. Bertazzoni's Professional Series dual fuel models use brass, and there are two practical reasons that matters.

Brass conducts heat well and distributes it evenly across the burner head, which reduces hot spots under the pan. And it survives cleaning. Aluminium caps pit and discolour over years of scrubbing and dishwasher cycles; brass holds up. On a cooker you intend to keep for a decade, that's the difference between a hob that still looks deliberate and one that looks tired.

The dual-ring power burner

This is the feature worth understanding, because it's the one that changes how you cook.

A standard gas burner has a single ring of flame. Its usable range is limited at both ends: turn it too low and the flame gutters or goes out; turn it up and the flame spreads past the pan base, heating the room rather than the food.

A dual-ring burner has two concentric flame rings that can be controlled together. The result is a genuinely wide usable range — a low simmer stable enough for a sauce you'll leave for forty minutes, and full output concentrated under the pan for searing.

Most gas hobs fail at one end of that range. If you've ever moved a pan to a smaller burner to get a proper simmer, or found that your biggest burner still won't get a steak pan hot enough, you've hit the limitation this solves.

Does burner count matter?

Less than people assume. Six burners on a 90cm hob means the burners are close together — fit two large pans and you've effectively lost the ones between them.

The more useful questions are: how much space is there between burners, and how wide is the range of the best burner? A 90cm hob with well-spaced burners and one excellent dual-ring burner will outcook a crowded hob with more of them.

Width is the honest proxy for usable hob capacity. That's the main practical gain going from 90cm to 100cm and above — not more burners, but more room around them.

The safety device

Bertazzoni dual fuel hobs use a thermocouple flame supervision device. It allows gas to flow only while a flame is detected, so if a pan boils over and extinguishes a burner, the gas shuts off rather than filling the room.

You'll notice it in use: after lighting, hold the knob in for a couple of seconds while the thermocouple heats. That's not a fault, it's the safety system arming.

Living with brass

Wipe burner caps while warm rather than scrubbing them cold — baked-on spills are far harder to shift and abrasive cleaning is what damages the finish. Avoid harsh scouring pads. Let caps dry fully before replacing them, or you'll get water marks.

Removable caps can go in the dishwasher on most models, but check your manual first; repeated cycles will dull brass faster than hand washing.

What if you go induction?

None of this applies — induction models have no burners at all, and the maintenance question becomes a single sheet of glass you wipe. That's a genuine argument for induction that has nothing to do with cooking performance. See our fuel comparison.

Browse dual fuel models or call 0330 133 6617.