Customer Reviews

Chemex Stainless Steel Grid for Use on Electric Stove

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I use my Chemex Stainless Steel Grid for keeping coffee made in my Melitta manual drip warm and it couldn't work better. If I ever lost or damaged it I would purchase it again in a heartbeat and I would recommend it to friends and family.

I bought this along with the Chemex coffeepot. It works well and does what it is suppose to do (protect the coffeepot).

I am so glad I ordered this item. I needed it for my "old" anchor hocking glass tea pot. On an electric stove I needed to use this grid for the tea pot. Item arrived on time.

I have a glass top stove so this is invaluable to use with my Chemex coffee maker. It is valued appropriately too.

For those of us who are Chemex lovers, this is a very handy steel grid for electric stoves. It is easy to keep clean and well worth the cost in protecting the Chemex coffee carafe.

I was looking DESPERATELY, (and I do mean DESPERATELY!), for SOME device that would allow me to use glass cookware on my electric coil stove. Having used a gas stove all my life, and suddenly being confronted with an electric one, I had absolutely NO clue on how to go about this. I only knew that I could NOT, in any event, place even "heat resistant" glass cookware directly on the electric coil, or it would break. ("Heat resistant" seemed almost a misnomer here.) The ONLY kind of glass cookware that IS safe on an electric coil stove is VISIONS glass cookware. Unfortunately, Visions cookware is heavy, it is expensive.....and it hasnt been made since the 1970s. Once in a while, a piece or two turns up....but it is usually NOT the size or type, (Visions also comes with "modern, non-stick Teflon" interiours...!), that I want to use. ("Teflon", of course, was also discontinued by its maker....as this "modern wonder" of a non-stick coating tended to flake off, and get into your food! Even before this fact was "discovered" by the "experts", I never really did trust Teflon....another example that one should ALWAYS go with one's intuition, and never ignore it!)

Anyway, here in 2011, I was DESPERATELY searching for something that would NOT turn my non-Visions "heat resistant" glass cookware into glass splinters. (Difficult to clean from the floor, y'know....and there's always that nasty possibility of getting an infection through a splinter or two....) I didn't even know what such a protective device was CALLED. Heat diffuser? Trivet? Sadly, not. A "Heat diffuser", I found, was for SIMMERING foods at a lower heat than could be had on the stove, (sort of a portable crockpot), and a "Trivet" was for putting on the kitchen COUNTER, and thn putting hot materials on top of it, so that the counter would not be burnt. Putting either a "trivet" or a "heat diffuser" under a piece of glass cookware at HIGH heat, resulted in noxious fumes and the burning, (or near burning), of either the trivet or the heat diffuser. in I spent a lot of moneym (and some very anxious moments), finding this out. And I STILL didn't have what I needed.

Desperate, I put BOTH definitions, ("heat diffuser trivet") TOGETHER, in the Amazon search engine. THIS strategy brought up the item herein being reviewed, the
CHEMEX STAINLESS STEEL GRID FOR USE ON ELECTRIC STOVE. It LOOKED like exactly what I wanted....but for some reason, (call it 'search engine over-kill"), I didn't buy it....even though there were only 3, (I think) left at the time. Perhaps, too, this substantial grid reminded me (slightly), of the quite flimsy, much smaller, (and soon lost), 3-leaf clover shaped "trivet" which had come with my 8-cup glass coffeemaker. I wanted something more....er....substantial.

So, I went to Ebay, put in "heat-diffuser trivet", and found something that looked like a complete, metal, rounded cover that fit right over the burner. This is because it WAS a complete, metal, rounded cover which fit right over the burner. Called a "burner plate", it SEEMED exactly what I wanted -- and needed. When it came, I tried it.........and it worked! I was ecstatic!

Unfortunately, however, I soon began to realize something which did not make me ecstatic. By placing my new "burner plate" under my "heat resistant" glassware made the water take longer to boil, than it had when I used the clover-shaped trivet, (that's what it was called by the manufacturer), which came with my 8-cup coffee maker, and which I had lost. This longer time to heat up the glass cookware would result, not only in having to wait longer for my water to boil, (which, of course I did not wnat), but also in higher electricity costs, (which I obvciously did not want either). The reason for this longer boiling time was easy to see -- by COMPLETELY covering the heating element, the heat took longer to reach the glass cookware, and to get said cookware to a hot enough condition to make the water boil.

My mind went, longingly, to the larger, wire "trivet" which I had seen on Amazon.
But by then, I figured all of them must have been sold by this time....right?

Still not completely sure WHAT to call this item, I went back to Amazon, hoping that the last item had not then been sold. I put "Heat diffuser burner plate trivet" on the Amazon search box....and came up with an assortment of trivets, and of round burner plates....but NOT the large metal trivet(>) I had seen before. Believing that the last one had been sold, (never to return, either), I went back to Ebay, and put "Heat diffuser burner plate trivet" in the Ebay search engine.

Success! Sadly, it did cost a few dollars more than I had expected, (didn't rememb3r the price on Amazon...but Amazon's prices, for many items, are usually cheaper than Ebay's)....but at that point, I didn't care.....too much, anyway.
I figured that any remaining sellers of this item had gone to Ebay, and that I'd never find this item (only 3 remaining, remember?), on Amazon again. And...most importantly, THIS item DOES heat water faster, (by a full 45 seconds), than the round, all-encompassing metal "burner plate" did.

Why? Because this ingenius item allows MOST of the bottom of a glass container to actually come into contact with the coil-heat element....but at a safe, 1/16" or so distance! It does NOT cover the entire burner, (as a "burner plate" does), and so allows the heat to freely come into contact with the glass cookware....at a safe distance.

Just for fun, this morning, I put up "burner plate trivet" in the Amazon search box this morning. UP CAME THIS ITEM! I know now that it is called a 'WIRE GRID',
and yes, it is selling for about $1 less than I paid on Ebay.

Live and learn, they say. Yes, I did pay more on Ebay : ( But I hope to make up the money, even so, on a decreased electricity bill..... : )