What is this?!? JennAir part?

MuseChaser

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I found this heavy round steel plate buried in a kitchen drawer with other accessories for a vintagey JennAir range after we bought our house years ago, and never got rid of it because I thought maybe it was important. I can't figure out what it's for, where it goes, or even IF it's for the range. It's about 8" in diameter, very heavy gauge, smooth (except for some slight corrosion/rust bubbles) on both sides, and one side has three little welded-on clips. It's too big to use as a blocking cover for the convection port inside the oven, and the clips don't seem to let it fit over the burners as some sort of "simmering" diffuser (it's an electric range... pic also attached).

Any ideas what it is? PlatePic.jpg Platepic2.jpg RangePic.jpg
 
Kind of looks like a block off plate to be installed if you weren't using the downdraft exhaust. Maybe pull out the grease filter and look behind it to see if the plate fits there.

Also, looks like the wife is doing the dishes.
 
Hey, my condo had that same JennAir range! One day, I tried to pop off the cover over the clock/timer knobs so I could clean underneath it. Instead, the whole timer assembly popped out, a hot lead touched the oven chassis and caused a hot-to-ground short, there was a loud *bzzZOT*, the lights dimmed, sparks showered everywhere...and I ended up getting a new range shortly afterward. (After the range was gone I found a boxed up grill cartridge in a crawlspace/storage nook that could be swapped into the place of two burners. I think that was a pretty top-of-the-line range when it was marketed.)

I did not have a plate like that. Like you said, to me it looks a lot like a heat spreader plate often used on gas ranges to avoid hot spots in the pot, especially when cooking at lower settings.

How beefy is it? Heat spreaders are often cast iron, sometimes enameled, and hefty. Hard to tell from the pics, but your plate looks like it might be a thinner steel plate, though still kinda beefy to just be a cover to something.

Older stoves (like from the 30s-40s) sometimes had bean pot wells, which could have covers when not in use. Could be something like that, though I don't think they were typically that beefy:
1948-Hotpoint-range-53a.jpg
 
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Does it fit on top of a burner? Perhaps as a substitution for a cast iron pan, keeping the heat up?
 
Older stoves (like from the 30s-40s) sometimes had bean pot wells, which could have covers when not in use.

the house I grew up in (age 4 - 16) had a stove with a pot well. Brand name was GE I think, that was a long time ago. The surface trim ring for that burner could be lifted up, bringing the burner element up to the surface level, and twisted to lock the burner in place. This trim ring could be lowered back down so *presto* you had a normal four burner cook ‍ top.

-Skip
 
Heat Diffuser/Simmer plate

Those tabs keep it from sliding off the electric coils probably off another stovetop that once was.
 
There should be a wooden 'squeegee' to go with it and you use it to make crepes (freedom pancakes).
 
I think its possible that it's just some random piece of metal that somebody picked up somewhere and thought it might make a great bacon press or something so it landed in the kitchen cabinet.....
 
I found this heavy round steel plate buried in a kitchen drawer with other accessories for a vintagey JennAir range after we bought our house years ago, and never got rid of it because I thought maybe it was important. I can't figure out what it's for, where it goes, or even IF it's for the range. It's about 8" in diameter, very heavy gauge, smooth (except for some slight corrosion/rust bubbles) on both sides, and one side has three little welded-on clips. It's too big to use as a blocking cover for the convection port inside the oven, and the clips don't seem to let it fit over the burners as some sort of "simmering" diffuser (it's an electric range... pic also attached).

Any ideas what it is? View attachment 85554 View attachment 85555 View attachment 85556
Mine has one of those... you put it on top of the burner to allow turning down the heat even lower than low... for slow cooking. The airspace diffuses the heat.
 
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