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I'm someone who loves cooking. In terms of cooking performance, gas stoves are unbeatable. They can output so much more heat than electric stoves and the way it is emitted means that it can travel up the sides of pans, which is important to me because I am Chinese and like cooking with a wok. You just can't get the same thing with an electric stove. In addition to that, they get hot as soon as you turn the dial and can cool back down just as quickly.
I understand that induction and electric are better for the environment and the morally correct choice, but they really do deliver an inferior cooking experience for me.
I will say, I had the opportunity to switch to induction and I'll never look back. You can boil water faster than in a microwave. Not even kidding.
The trick is that it turns your entire pan into the burner. Similarly to how gas flames can surround the pan.
One of the most important things I do with my gas stoves is when adjusting the temperature I look at the flame. The knob is numbered from 1 to 10 but it seems there are near infinite settings between each number. I would estimate that I actually set it to hundredths of a digit, though it's the flame height that I'm adjusting. I paid about $400 for the stove new about 20 years ago, it has 5 burners and an oven.
A relative has a electric stove, it has a similar set of numbers on each knob, but it's manufactured so that the knob clicks into place on each number. There's no ability to set it to 5.5, or 5.45, it's either 5 or 6. It has 4 burners and no oven. I don't know how much it cost, but I know I would not enjoy learning to use it. The heat is delayed, you set the knob and wait for several minutes for the burner to heat up.
Not long ago online someone online recommended a Breville "control freak" induction stove. It looks like it might actually be able to replace the controlability of the gas stove's flame height with an intelligent electronic control. One burner costs roughly $1500. If I wanted 4 burners then I'd be looking at $6,000.
I'd love to have an electric induction stove, but I just can't afford that upscale price. Alternatively, an electric stove like my relative has would never be a product I would choose to use.
The slow response stove you mention is a radiant electric stove, induction is much more instant action, and finding one with reasonable knobs is easy these days. (It's also easy to find ones with digital controls that would confuse more people than it's worth)
Induction works almost exactly like a wireless phone charger, except that the power (as heat) instead goes directly into your pan's bottom.
We recently did the change to induction here, and the only thing I miss from my gas burner is my non stick pan that was aluminum. I did need to buy a few other replacements, but I haven't found a non stick 12" in a store that I can make chili cheesy Mac in. (The tomato base eats the carbon steel seasoning, and I don't want to spend a bunch on a pan that is delicate)
Some day though.
You can still get those pretty cheap. Even before my induction stove was delivered I bought a reasonably priced set of non-stick skillets. Yes they’re aluminum, but with a steel disk in the base. I don’t remember the price, but it was by far the cheapest of my cookware.
FWIW, I don’t use non-stick anymore but I don’t want other people to mess up my cast iron of stainless
Yeah, I've not found one at local places idly looking, tfal for instance has made their induction ready ones only on their higher end pans.
Wow, yeah, that’s expensive for what it is. I have the tfal but for the price Costco had them, it never occurred to me they might be a high end model. I would not pay the prices I see online now. Unfortunately it was not a regular item at Costco and they soon left
Enameled cast iron, but I may be biased. ;)
And you've upgraded the lid knob on all of them! (Mine had a plastic knob, I bought a replacement)
I've got a... Collection? Of Pots and pans, I just want a cheap Teflon pan for a few recipes, And when I don't want to train house guests on seasoned pans.
I will have to train said house guests to not use high heat though, 3700w cooks. (We had a cheap, low performing gas stove, so this is a huge upgrade)
Except the loop knob on the one in the middle. That was the one that started all this, inherited from my grandmother. It's from the 1950s(!)
What you’re describing is likely more about your familiarity with finessing temperatures through gas heating where you can move the pan around and temper with some learned skill. Induction cooking is the most efficient and fastest by a significant margin, due to the lack of losses. In a side by side comparison, gas cooktops are the slowest to boil water, despite being able to reach the same temps as you state. Even flat top electric stoves are faster and more efficient. This is of course all about choosing the right method for you and not the speed / efficiency in a vacuum, as long as people are informed with the most up to date information.
I didn't say anything about cooking speed. I said it gets hot fast and cools down fast. As in you can quickly shut off the heat when a sauce is about to burn without having to move it to another burner.
Speed isn't the only thing that cooking entails. Sometimes I want to simmer something for a couple hours, and the control mechanism for resistive stoves is pretty shit at doing that because it pulses 100% power instead of running at a lower output level.
I've never done this on a proper induction cooktop, but the induction hot plate I have will 100% burn anything I put on it to simmer because it's cheap and bad.
That's a lot of myths that are pretty easily debunked with only a minimal amount of research and effort. https://youtu.be/eUywI8YGy0Y?si=7wM-om8J6HGUg24O
Please put them in text. I'm not watching a whole Technology Connections video for this.
I don't know what you want... In the video he basically does a bunch of experiments and shows that gas does not have the amazing benefits that people think it has.
It does NOT heat up faster. It does NOT have more even heat. etc...
It does, however, fill your room with all kinds of nasties really quickly, as he shows with air quality sensors.
I didn't say it heats up food faster. I know it doesn't. I say the stove gets hot faster, which is not the same thing. And it also cools off faster. So if you have a sauce that's burning, you can quickly shut it off instead of having to move the pan.
But the fact that I use a wok I think is still a good reason to prefer gas.
You can literally put your hand directly on the surface of an induction cook surface while it’s on. You can also place it on the surface within seconds of removing the hot pan of food that was cooking.
I am talking about quickly reducing the heat of a pan which, for example, has a sauce in it that is close to burning without having to move it to another burner.
Ok? Which part of what I said was irrelevant in your mind?
In my opinion, all of because I don't care.