Care handbook · Los Angeles
The Once-a-Season Simmer Check
In one sentence
The simmer check is five quiet minutes, four times a year, that tell you whether the lowest flame on your range is genuinely failing or whether something else in the kitchen is stealing it — and which of the two it is decides whether you need a part or simply a different habit with the extraction.
Viking Pro Appliance Repair Los Angeles · (213) 516-4020
A cooktop that will not sit at a simmer is one of the commonest reasons anybody rings about a professional range, and around here it frequently turns out not to be the range at all. Wide canopy hoods over big tops, a tightly built house and windows that stay shut through a hot spell add up to an extraction fan with nowhere to draw its replacement air from, and the first casualty is the smallest flame in the room. The check below takes the fan out of the argument before you spend a penny on parts.
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Switch the extraction off and let the kitchen settle
Fan off, doors and windows as you usually keep them, nothing else running. You are establishing what the range does on its own with no air being dragged past it, and every later reading gets compared against this one.
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Take every burner down to its lowest in turn
Light one ring, bring the knob the whole way round to its lowest mark, and leave it alone for a full minute while you watch it. Then the next ring, and the next, until the top is done. Small, steady and blue is a pass.
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Write down which ones wander, and how
Only three outcomes are worth recording: it holds, it gutters and picks up again, or it dies. Which burner did which is the single most useful thing you can say on the telephone, and it decides what comes off the van.
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Now run exactly the same test with the fan on full
Same rings, same setting, same full minute each. If flames that were rock steady a moment ago now flutter or go out, the hood is the thief and the range is innocent. If a burner fails both rounds it has a fault of its own, and that is the point to ring Viking Pro Appliance Repair Los Angeles on (213) 516-4020.
The Once-a-Season Simmer Check: how often, and when to stop
| How often | What you need | Stop and call if |
|---|---|---|
| Once a season | Five minutes and a kitchen nobody is cooking in | A burner that will not hold its lowest setting with the extraction switched off. |
| After any hood or ducting work | The same test, fan off and then on | Flames that behaved perfectly last month now dying at low whenever the fan runs. |
| Whenever a low flame surprises you | A second pair of eyes at the knob | Any ring that goes out silently under a pan, at any setting, with or without the fan. |
Follow-ups
My simmer only fails when the hood is on. Is that a fault?
Not in the range, no. The fan is drawing more air out of the room than the room can replace, and the smallest flame gives way first. A lower speed, or an open window while you cook, usually settles it. Viking Pro Appliance Repair Los Angeles will talk it through on (213) 516-4020.
How low is a low flame supposed to be?
Low enough to hold a sauce without stirring it round the pan, and steady enough to stay that way while you leave the room. No mark exists to measure it against, so compare your burners with each other. If one is the odd one out, Viking Pro Appliance Repair Los Angeles is on (213) 516-4020.
One ring dies at the bottom of its travel even with the fan off. Now what?
Stop using that ring and have it looked at. A burner unable to hold its own lowest setting in still air has something amiss at the valve, the port or the cap, and none of the three gets better with use. Viking Pro Appliance Repair Los Angeles takes it from there on (213) 516-4020.
Signed by
Keiko Mabuchi
- Works on
- Service technician — cooktops and ventilation
- Years on the tools
- 11
- Certified
- EPA Section 608 certified
The part that sets the low flame is the burner valve and its stem.
If the flame only fails with the fan on, read what the hood does to a low flame instead.
Wide Valley kitchens run the hood hard in summer, which is why this turns up most on Encino calls.