The best plancha is a professional-quality plancha.
The professional quality of a plancha can be recognised by its sturdiness, its performance and its durability.
Nothing beats professional quality for a high-end and durable plancha. The best plancha is necessarily a cooking plate that performs well in terms of temperature rise and cooking quality. A sufficiently thick cooking surface and a well-made stainless steel frame ensure the sturdiness of this piece of kitchen equipment, and therefore its durability. Depending on the coating, the thickness of the hot plate can play a significant role in terms of heat retention for certain types of cooking, such as rib of beef. The best plancha must be able to withstand intensive use.
The best plancha is also characterised by its high power.
The griddle plate is all about searing all types of food (fish, meat, shellfish, vegetables…) with a simple drizzle of olive oil on a very hot plate. It must deliver high power to ensure the transfer of temperature from its heat source to the product being cooked, through the cooking plate. The heating power ensures a rapid temperature rise despite the thickness of the plate. High power also makes it possible, at high temperature, to sear or grill meat and fish, or even simmer frozen shellfish medleys.
The plancha must be equipped with professional technology.
A professional-quality plancha cannot be dismantled. The inside of a griddle plate is therefore not visible to its user. It is thus important, when buying, to find out about the appliance’s technology. A sufficiently large Incoloy heating element is preferred, to cover the entire cooking surface of the professional electric plancha. For the gas model, nothing beats the star burner with several long branches for its high power and its wide cooking coverage.
Plancha cooking requires a very smooth cooking surface.
The plancha’s cooking method is contact cooking: food placed on the very hot plate, previously coated with a drizzle of oil, cooks through direct contact with the plate. The smoother the surface, the higher the coefficient of friction between the food and the plate, and the better the cooking. The colouring of the product being cooked is thus more even.
What is the best gas plancha?
Optimal heat distribution technology is essential for perfectly even cooking on a gas plancha.
The great difficulty of all gas cooking is achieving even cooking. Whatever the gas and its installation (butane, propane, natural gas, mains gas or gas bottle), the gas used in kitchens is characterised by a loss of more than 60% of its energy when converted into heat for cooking. High gas consumption is often required for dishes that are ultimately cooked unevenly. This difficulty is all the more visible with a large cooking surface such as a gas plancha with 2 or 3 heating zones. Plancha cooking must be perfectly even, with no heat loss around the edges of the plate and no overcooking spot where the burner sits. The best gas plancha features optimal heat distribution technology, namely:
- an 8-branch star burner for a griddle plate with one heating zone
- a 6-branch star burner per heating zone for 2-burner planchas and 3-burner planchas.
These star-shaped high-temperature burners diffuse heat evenly through the branches arranged in a star pattern and spread beneath a cooking surface of up to 40 x 40 cm.
The gas plancha’s burners must be safe both at ignition and during cooking.
With a gas griddle plate, it is better to opt for piezo ignition rather than using long matches. Lighting the burners is thus easier and safer. The pilot light system, which often goes with it, detects the flow of gas to the burner. The heating power is then adjustable using the control knob for each cooking zone. In addition, each burner must be fitted with a safety thermocouple. This detects the presence of the flame on the burner branches. Overheating, a gas leak or a fault triggers the thermocouple, which immediately shuts down the gas plancha for safety.
Roller Grill recommends the PSR 600 GE professional gas plancha.
Roller Grill, the French manufacturer of cooking equipment for catering professionals, has been designing and building griddle plates for more than 40 years. All Roller Grill gas planchas are fitted with 6 – 8 branch star burners and safety thermocouples. For its high power and its very smooth, hard-wearing coating, Roller Grill recommends the PSR 600 GE professional gas plancha. It is fitted with a 10 mm thick steel plate coated with mass enamel that is particularly resistant to friction and high temperatures. This gas plancha thus offers unrivalled even cooking quality thanks to its heat distribution technology and its perfectly smooth surface.
What is the best electric plancha?
The best electric plancha must be sufficiently powerful.
Unlike gas, electricity reacts more slowly to adjustments and temperature variations. The thermostat regulates the temperature according to external variations. So, when a fresh or frozen product is placed on the hot plate, the plate’s temperature drops. The regulating thermostat detects this drop in temperature. If the electric plancha lacks power, the temperature recovery will be too slow and the food will not be properly seared or grilled. The best electric plancha must have sufficient power for the temperature recovery of the cooking plate and for searing food.
Precise regulation is essential for even cooking.
The electric plancha offers more precise cooking than the gas version, provided it has a good adjustable thermostat. With a precise regulating thermostat and heating elements deployed under the entire surface of the plate, cooking is even, with no heat loss around the edges. Heat distribution on the plancha is a quality criterion not to be overlooked.
Roller Grill recommends the PSR 600 EE professional electric plancha.
All Roller Grill electric griddle plates are fitted with coiled Incoloy heating elements and precise regulating thermostats. For its high power, needed to transfer heat through the thick cooking plate, Roller Grill recommends the PSR 600 EE professional electric plancha. Thanks to a power of 3 kW per heating zone (6 kW in total), the PSR 600 EE electric plancha heats up very quickly: 300°C in 10 minutes. It offers remarkable and perfectly even cooking quality, like its gas counterpart the PSR 600 GE. The PSR 600 EE griddle plate requires a three-phase installation (6 kW – 380 V) in catering professionals’ establishments. It can also be manufactured with 2 x 220-240 V cords, each carrying 3 kW, for restaurants without three-phase power. Roller Grill manufactures this same PSR 600 EE electric model in 3.5 kW, the maximum power for a standard European electrical installation in our homes, indoors or in an outdoor kitchen.
When choosing the best plancha, needs may differ depending on the user: professional chef or passionate home cook.
The chef is looking for a high-performance, durable professional plancha for their restaurant
The plancha is a key piece of equipment in professional kitchens. Chefs use a very large cooking surface to sear pieces of fish or meat, brown vegetables and also for the hot-holding of culinary preparations. The question of which professional plancha for a restaurant deserves closer examination. Beyond the energy source (electric or gas), catering professionals also attach great importance to the performance of their griddle plate under intensive use and to the type of cooking plate (cast iron, rolled steel, enamel, hard chrome for teppanyaki cooking, etc.).
When buying an electric or gas plancha, the passionate home cook wants to be free of the constraints of the barbecue without compromising on healthy, varied cooking.
The drawbacks of the barbecue in terms of lighting, cooking and cleaning are prompting more and more outdoor cooking enthusiasts to turn to the plancha, so they can make the most of family meals and their guests. With the plancha, no more lighting and cleaning chores! Whether electric or gas, it lights up at the simple turn of a knob. This cooking equipment is also easy to maintain thanks to its fully removable collection drawer for cooking juices. Plancha cooking should also go hand in hand with healthy, dietetic and varied cuisine. Choosing the right plancha for the home or your outdoor space also means thinking about how to install this kitchen equipment at home, depending on the location and frequency of use, and about the choice of utensils or accessories.
The plate coating helps refine the choice for the restaurant chef or the cooking enthusiast
Electric and gas planchas can be fitted with plates of different materials and coatings. While the cast iron plate is the very origin of the plancha, other materials have emerged since the 2000s, such as raw steel, enamel, chrome, stainless steel, etc. Having decided on gas or electric technology, restaurant chefs and cooking enthusiasts alike need to consider which coating to choose for their plancha.
Roller Grill meets every expectation with a wide range of planchas
Roller Grill has been manufacturing cooking and refrigeration equipment for catering professionals for more than 70 years. This French manufacturer has been designing and building griddle plates for more than 40 years for restaurants and takeaway outlets. For the general public, Roller Grill has developed a line of high-end planchas with a sleek design, while applying the professional technologies of the catering sector. Roller Grill professional planchas means more than 30 models, 5 cooking plate materials, 2 energy sources (electric or gas) and a wide choice of plancha accessories. A great option for cooking enthusiasts and catering professionals in search of the best plancha brand!