Photograph the layout first, because a wide ILVE hob has up to twelve trivet pieces and several burner sizes that are not interchangeable. Soak enamelled trivets and caps in a non-caustic degreaser. Wash brass caps separately by hand, because any degreaser tarnishes brass permanently.
The hob is where an ILVE actually earns its reputation, and it is also where the appliance carries the most separate parts. A 120cm Majestic can have five or six burners of three different sizes, up to twelve individual trivet pieces, a wok burner with its own multi-ring crown, and on many models a teppanyaki plate or fry top occupying a third of the surface.
None of that is difficult to clean. All of it is easy to reassemble incorrectly.
Photograph it before you touch it
This is the single most useful thing on this page.
The trivets on a wide ILVE look interchangeable and are not. The pieces flanking a central wok burner are frequently cut differently from the outer ones, and a trivet in the wrong position either rocks or sits proud, which means pans do not sit flat over the flame. Burner caps and crowns are sized per burner, and a large cap on a medium crown gives a lifting, uneven flame that will not simmer properly.
Take a photograph from directly above with everything in place, before anything comes off. It takes ten seconds and it removes the entire problem.
The brass, and why it goes in a different pile
Most ILVE hobs carry brass somewhere: burner caps, the trim rings around each burner, and the rails and beading across the fascia.
Brass is a copper alloy. Caustic cleaners attack it directly, and so do many strong non-caustic degreasers, leaving the surface dull and blotchy where the zinc has been leached out of it. Metal polish lifts a light tarnish and does nothing for a chemically etched surface, and on lacquered brass polishing cuts through the lacquer and makes it worse.
So the brass comes off with everything else and then goes in its own pile. Warm soapy water, by hand, dried immediately, with a cloth that has not been used anywhere else on the appliance. That last clause is the one people miss: brass is most often ruined by a cloth that was fine until it was used in the cavity below.
The trivets
- 1Lift them off cold and lay them out in the order they came off, matching your photograph.
- 2Soak them flat in hot water with a non-caustic degreaser for an hour, in a bath or tub lined with an old towel. Cast iron chips porcelain, and the towel prevents a second problem while you are solving the first.
- 3Work them with a stiff nylon brush, never wire. ILVE trivets are matte enamelled cast iron and wire leaves bright scars through the coating, which then rust.
- 4Dry them completely and immediately. Any exposed iron flashes orange within hours in a Sydney summer.
The wok burner and the teppanyaki plate
The wok burner has a taller, multi-ring crown and a correspondingly larger cap. It carries more ports than the others and blocks more readily, because it does the most work. Clear the ports with a soft brush and a wooden toothpick, never a metal pin, since enlarging a port changes the gas-to-air mix and gives a yellow, sooty flame.
The teppanyaki or fry top is a different surface again: a thick steel or chrome-finished plate set into the hob. It is not enamel and it is not cast iron, and the two rules are that abrasives mark it visibly because it is a large flat surface at eye level, and that it should be cleaned warm rather than cold, when residue still lifts with a scraper and water. Left to go cold and hard, a fry top becomes a much longer job.
The burner sizes, and why simmering fails
An ILVE hob usually carries three or four burner sizes: a small simmer burner, two or three mediums, a large, and on most models a triple-ring wok burner. That spread is the point of the appliance, and it is also why a reassembly error shows up as a cooking fault rather than as a cleaning fault.
A large cap seated on a medium crown sits proud. The flame lifts off the ports instead of hugging them, it will not hold a low setting, and the burner roars where it should whisper. Owners report this as a gas pressure problem or a failing burner. It is almost always a cap in the wrong place after a clean.
The simmer burner is the one that suffers most, because it has the smallest ports and the least gas flow, so it is the first to block and the first to be ruined by a port cleared with something metal. If one burner on the hob will not hold a low flame, start there rather than assuming the appliance has developed a fault.
What never to use
- Any cleaner at all on the brass, including most branded degreasers.
- Metal polish on lacquered brass.
- Wire brushes on enamelled cast iron trivets.
- A cavity cloth on the fascia. This is how brass gets ruined by careful people.
- Metal pins in burner ports.
- Leaving cast iron wet, which rusts fast.
What actually goes wrong
Trivets back in the wrong positions, so the hob rocks. Entirely prevented by one photograph.
Tarnished brass caps, from a shared cloth or from run-down when the oven below was cleaned.
A wok burner with a lifting flame, from a cap on the wrong crown or ports cleared with something metal.
A scratched teppanyaki plate, from an abrasive used on a cold, hardened surface out of frustration.
Rusted trivets dried by air rather than by hand.
A hob cleaned beautifully and reassembled from memory, which is the same failure as the first item on this list and worth stating twice, because it is the one that turns a good afternoon's work into a fortnight of pans that will not sit flat.
Should you do it yourself?
Do it yourself for the trivets and caps. Soaking them is the bulk of the visible improvement and there is nothing to damage provided the brass stays out of the soak.
Get someone in if the brass has already dulled, if a burner is not lighting evenly, if a teppanyaki plate has been left to harden, or if the range is 100cm or wider and you would rather not spend a day on it.
The ILVE oven below shares the same brass and the same caution, and the ILVE rangehood above is usually a wide canopy working hard over all those burners.