Its great to hear the tech is progressing. I’ve had terrible experiences with them 10+ years ago. I really wish there was a practical way to try before buying
I got one last year, replaced a shitty old school electric coil one.
Similarly, I was kinda skeptical, but in my mind I reasoned it can’t be possibly worse than the shit electric one I had at the time and I’m not going to pay to have a gas line installed sooo I went with it.
It’s the best fucking stove I’ve ever cooked on in my life. By a LONG shot.
I can watch a pot of water boil
Oil is up to temp faster than you can turn around and grab your meat and seasonings
Almost-magic fast temp adjustmentsThe best part? You know those black burned on crud spots(that are most prevalent on glass tops) that you have to scrape off? Non existent. Idk if its unique to Samsung, but it’s surface is fucking dead easy to clean, it never got the burned on crap after a year when I’ve had new stoves in the past develop it in a matter of weeks
The easy clean is really due to how the induction coil heats the pan but not the cooktop surface. With the surface only heating indirectly it’s really not possible for stuff to burn on nearly as badly. At least when compared to a conventional radiant electric. The surface just doesn’t get as hot.
I went from induction to a house with a gas cooktop and miss the induction a lot.
Ah gotcha, I wasn’t sure because my surface feels so…weird (it doesn’t feel or look like glass or ceramic) so I wasn’t sure if the “magic” was in that or just the way induction worked
Get a decent counter top induction plate. Don’t get a fancy one, because they are all limited to the same power. So get one that has the basic features you might want to try. Also try to get one with a reasonable size heating zone.
Then get a good solid stainless steel or cast iron pan.
It won’t be quite the same power level as a full cook range, but it will show you how the heat can be managed. It will probably be able to boil water faster than gas, but not quite as fast as a modern electric. Try something that requiresgood heat control, like pancakes.
These induction plates are also just generally useful for doing stinky/messy things outside or adding another burner to the kitchen during big holiday or family events.
Any recommendations? All the countertop ones I’ve seen online max out at 8 inch diameter cooktop, and almost all my skillets are 12 inch
I’d caution against buying any of them for pans that large, honestly. Manufacturers are not required to match the size of the coil to the ring that indicates the ‘cooking surface’ on the cooktop. I bought the Duxtop one that all the review sites seem to recommend, and while it’s still a capable burner, the actual coil does not extend to the full diameter of cooking surface (it’s a lot closer to the minimum pan diameter, about 4 inches). No pan is actually going to adequately compensate for this, I’ve tested it across several different cookware materials, and multiple different brands of multi-ply stainless steel. You end up needing to treat pans somewhat like a wok, with hot/cold zones and a very clear temperature falloff when not in the center of the pan. I didn’t have issues with warping, but I was also extremely careful when it came to preheating pans that were 10 inches or more.
If you do decide to purchase one, you need to find the size of the actual coil itself. Most manufacturers don’t readily provide this information, taking advantage of the fact that most consumers are unfamiliar with the technology or won’t nitpick about the uneven heating. I hate it, because it can lead to an experience so bad that it turns people off from induction.
With the plug in models that’s about the biggest you’ll find. Full range cook tops will offer larger diameters.
If you’re searing or pan frying, then a 12 in might have some cold spots towards the edge, depends on the quality of the pan. A 10 in or less should be fine as long as the pan is decent quality. For something like deep frying, stewing, boiling, etc the size won’t matter so much.
I’ve used a pretty cheap on (Duxtop or something like that) with a 6-8" heating coil. It worked fine on a well-conducting pan - 12" triple layer stainless-aluminum-stainless (like All-Clad, but a cheap version for restaurant use). It also did great with a 10" carbon steel pan. But I wasn’t doing anything that required maximum heat across the width of the pan. I think that’s a shortcoming for sure.
There are also reports of poor performance with larger cast iron pans, which makes sense - they’re not great heat conductors. So I think in part at least it depends on your cookware and what you’re cooking. Boil/simmer/fry in a larger highly conductive pan will likely be fine. Sear in a larger less-conductive pan maybe not so much.
I love magnets
As great as the improvements have been, I’ve still not seen an alternative that can compete with gas when it comes to tilting a pan or wok. Losing heat every time you lose direct, flat contact is so frustrating for certain cooking styles. Also being able to roast (and not fully bake) a pepper over the flames is so helpful. If an alternative could do those two things, I’d be very excited.
It should be possible to do a 2-3cm gap between induction coils and base of pot.
There are wok induction stoves with a curved surface for a matching wok
The ones I’ve seen online don’t put out anywhere near the same amount of heat. US plugs are limited to like 7000btus for a standard outlet, but most wok burners are like 30000btus minimum. That works out to like 20 amps on a 240v circuit or 40a on 120v.
You can’t compare the energy directly like that since induction has a higher efficiency.
That’s fair. I tried to under estimate the wok BTUs, since commercial units can have 3-4 times the output, to make it a little more fair of a comparison though.
Pedantry:
Technically the gas is about 100% efficient at turning gas into heat, but not all of that heat makes it to the pan whereas the induction transmits like 99% of the energy used into the pan directly.
I feel the ideal setup would be to use induction for most things, and then have a separate 100k BTU propane burner outside for wok cooking. It’s more than you’d be able to get from a residential unit.
Some higher end induction cooktops in the EU are three-phase power around 400V like the Bosch PXX975DC1E which uses 11kW max. Not sure what btu output that is though.
If it were putting that 11kw out of one burner it would be 35-40k BTUs, but it’s only putting out 3.7kw per burner, so like 12k BTUs.
That’s true, but the vast majority of hear with those high BTU woks literally just go completely around the side and heat up the air around the wok and is not transferred to the pan. They are just the only good way to give high, encompassing heat on all sides.
BTU output transferred to the pan is likely similar.
Yes, you need a full-size unit that plugs into a 240v high-amp stove outlet like a range does. The 120v countertop units dont do it.
I’ve got a cheap, pretty awful induction hot plate and it has no trouble getting a cast iron pan to over 700F.
A half-watt Christmas light is 2000F. That metric is not very relevant to cooking.
Okay, you put your hand on a 700F cast iron pan
Have used so many induction stove tops, and none of them match my gas one.
Being able to tilt my pans and concentrate where I want heat is invaluable.
I keep clean as o cook also, and the touch interface they all seem to have on the glass breaks the cook when I wipe over with a damp cloth.
Sure, they can bring water to the boil fast, but it’s not for me.
I literally stopped eating anything from gas after I got my induction stove. I was invited couple of times for dinner by friends who consider them foodies but since I know they use gas I just pass. Once you go induction you don’t go back.
With gas you may think the result is good but it really just more or less where it should be. With induction it takes a little bit of practice but you can repeatedly make it absolutely perfect. Yes, it’s more difficult to cook on induction and I get it that some people simply don’t have necessary skills but good cook + induction will always beat gas stove. Once I got used to it I could always tell when something was made on gas. It got to the point for me that I just as what type of stove restaurant uses and if it’s gas I simply walk out and go to a different place. One with induction stove of course.
…you flake on dinner with your “friends” because they cook with a gas stove. I hope this is satire.
Mine has a lock controls button that I use to prevent things turning on when I clean. You need to long-press it, and a brief wipe with a damp cloth won’t trigger that button
Bro, spaghetti is the ultimate test. What are you even doing?
I plan on buying one of those countertop wok induction stoves. I hear enough good about them to want to try. Range oven, I need a new one and have planned on induction for a while
