Induction Cooktops - What do you think

[gogoblender 3,185]

My cooking chef video forays had netted me the following dialogue off of Iron Chef:

 

"Oh, all our cookers are induction"

 

... huh?

 

I'd never heard of one before, and so the googling began.

 

 

Sorry yeah that video's kind of cheesy huh

 

Apparently, they have been being used in Europe for about ten years, they change heat instantly, akin to a gas burner stove, but without the wasted heat going to heat up the air around it. They need ferro-magnetic pans to work... the moment you take the pot off the cooktop, there is no more heat being issued, cept what's left in your pot^^

 

No open flame! This is pretty important to me, the apartment building we have is so old, from olden Montreal days Most of the framework is wooden, I'm terrified of accidentally leaving a stove or anything on.

 

I know we have a lot of non - north American gourmet cooks on these boards, I was wondering if any of you have used one before, or have one? The top of our stove has coils on top, we're thinking of just picking up a smaller cook top that has two placements for cooking, and the price isn't too high.

 

Is induction really all it's made out to be?

 

 

gogo

[cider_steve 26]

Nah, I have an electric hob and oven.

 

I actually really miss my gas hob from my last place, as electric takes an age to change temp' when you adjust the knob. I am getting used to it now but it took a while. I used to turn my gas down and the temperature would change immediately and I could let the saucepan just simmer, then when I moved here, I would turn down the electric and it would take so long for the temp to drop that it would all boil over ! Many a ruined meal !

 

If I ever get my own place, rather than renting, then this modern kitchen equipment would be something I would consider.

 

Steve.

[Dragon Brother 619]

We have one of these at home. They work really well in that they heat stuff up really fast and its very tricky to burn yourself on them. Easy to clean with no rack across the top of burners or anything. Ours shuts off if it realises something has boiled over and is on the stovetop.

[chattius 2,610]

I had my first experience with them when I did summerbreak jobs at Buderus/wetzlar. I had to calculate the different elements for the steel production: carbon, nickel, wolfram, mangan,iron, ...

 

Used steel was melted in a big oven powered by gas. Then 10 tons of liquid steel were poured into big induction ovens to do the mix. They oven were below ground, 8 feet diametre for top covers. My job was it to open the cover, using a long pole to get a probe, pouring the probe on a thermo plotter. The way the steel cooled down you could calculate how muchcarbon, mangan, nickel, ,,, was in the mix.

 

 

Laboratory

 

 

Praxis

 

 

 

Back to topic:

One advantage of having induction ovens is that the plate stays cool and only the pot is heating. So nice for people who forget to turn them off. Cooktops however are too easy to be moved and may fall down. We have a full induction oven in the kitchen in addition to a gas fired one (power offs are frequent,tree falling on a power line at storm). We also have a wood fired caldron for 300 litres for washing and a woodfired oven in same small building (small hut used for washing clothes,preparing animal feed (like 50 pounds potatoes at once)) ,,,

 

One advantage is hot summer, no clima control, ... An induction oven produces less additional heat.

[Delta! 992]

I've only used an induction cooker once, I was a little bit disappointed at first, until my friend mentioned that it is a very old one and something is not right, she also mentioned a "rattling thing when you move it"...

It still boiled water faster than gas and there wasn't excessive heat, which is great.

My first choice for cooking, is gas, then glass electric(also very fast).

Another good choice is electric pans, I got one for my b-day, bigger than a pot, excellent for frying, grilling, stewing, boiling, non stick, heats up very fast, easy to clean... and can be packed away easily.