Wash brass burner detailing by hand in warm soapy water with its own cloth, and keep every degreaser away from it. Soak the enamelled trivets and caps separately, and never let a cavity cloth reach the front of the appliance.
A Lofra hob on the Dolcevita or heritage lines carries brass detailing among the burners, which makes it the most awkward hob in this series to clean carefully.
The brass is in the working area
On most brass-trimmed ranges the brass is on the fascia, below and away from the cooking surface. On a Dolcevita it is between and around the burners, in exactly the zone you need to clean.
That means the usual approach of doing the aggressive work first and the delicate work last does not fully protect it, because the two are within centimetres of each other on the same plane.
The workable method is to lift everything removable off first, take the enamelled trivets and caps away to soak, and only then clean the hob surface with a cloth rather than a spray, working around the brass rather than over it. Wipe the brass itself last, with warm soapy water and its own cloth, and dry it.
Trivets and caps
Soak the enamelled Lofra pieces flat for an hour in hot water with a non-caustic degreaser, in a tub lined with an old towel. Brass caps do not go in that soak; they are washed by hand and dried immediately.
Our cooktop cleaning guide covers ports, crowns and electrodes.
Photograph first
The wider Lofra hobs carry several trivet sections and burner sizes, and the pieces are not interchangeable. Ten seconds with a camera saves working it out by trial afterwards.
Lacquer, and why polish makes it worse
Much of the brass on a Lofra hob is lacquered rather than bare, which is what keeps it bright without weekly polishing.
That changes the response to a mark. On bare brass a light tarnish comes off with metal polish. On lacquered brass polish cuts straight through the lacquer, and what you are left with is a patch of bare brass in the middle of a lacquered rail, which then tarnishes at a completely different rate from everything around it. It looks worse within weeks than the mark you were trying to remove.
If you are unsure which you have, assume lacquered and use nothing but warm soapy water. A Lofra that has been left alone with a damp cloth for ten years still looks right; one that has been polished twice does not.
What actually goes wrong
Tarnished brass, from a spray that reached it or a cloth that carried degreaser across.
Brass caps put in the soak with the enamelled ones.
Trivet sections in the wrong positions, so pans rock.
Should you do it yourself?
Do it yourself if you are prepared to work in stages rather than spray and wipe.
Get someone in if the brass has already dulled, or alongside the Lofra oven, which is the same appliance on a freestanding model.