The Kenmore Elite 45113 is a budget-friendly 30-inch ceramic electric cooktop that gives you essential cooking features and some extras. The impressive boil setting outshines those of conventional cooktops and makes it easy to prepare a number of dishes fast.
You get four burners on this glass cooktop, including a 6-inch, 1,200-watt burner that can reach close to 700 degrees Fahrenheit and a 9-inch burner for conventionally sized pans. The 9-inch burner features an exceptional boil setting that can reach a maximum power of 3,200 watts, with temperatures of more than 800 F. This lets you boil water or other liquids in half the time it would take using a conventional cooktop. There is also a large dual burner in front that starts at 9 inches but expands to 12 inches for big pots. Its wattage ranges from 1,800 to 3,000.
Another 6-inch burner functions largely as a melting and warming area. It presents a heating capability that gives you a range of different settings from 300 watts to 1,300 watts. As a result, you can use it to do such things as gently simmer hollandaise sauce without it curdling, melt chocolate without burning it, or keep foods such as soup warm until its ready to serve. If you need a five-burner electric cooktop and are willing to pay a bit more, you might find the Maytag MEC9536BS more to your liking.
This Kenmore electric cooktop provides power knobs rather than push-button controls. The power knobs give you quite a breadth of control over the heat, offering nine different settings from low to high for the burners – with the exception of the warming burner, which has 10 settings. These knobs are located on the right side of the cooktop. The knobs make it trickier to clean than cooktops with touch controls. There are indicator lights under the surface of each burner to show you when they're not safe to touch. It is lacking other safety features like a child lock and built-in timer that automatically shuts off a burner that is left on.
While this Kenmore Elite model isn’t as sleek as some of the other cooktops we looked at, it still looks good. It combines traditional and modern features. It has metal knobs, optional stainless steel runners and evenly spaced burners. The surface also has heat indicator lights that stay on even when the entire cooktop is shut off, so you and others can avoid getting burned.
The Kenmore Elite 45113 is an affordable electric cooktop with a temperature variance that lets you rapid boil water on one burner while warming soup on another burner. It has a dual burner that expands from 9 to 12 inches. It has traditional knobs in place of digital buttons, which will appeal to some while turning others off. It lacks some safety features such as a child lock, but it has an overall solid feature package for the price.
