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I think the stove is the only appliance that I will refuse to electrify. Cooking on a electric stove is just not the same, especially if you love to cook.
by esturk 5y ago
I think the stove is the only appliance that I will refuse to electrify. Cooking on a electric stove is just not the same, especially if you love to cook.
- turbinerneiter 5y agoI never used a gas stove, so I can't compare, but I moved from a regular electric to an induction stove and it's a billion times better. I think it's quite close to a gas stove. Maybe someone who actually used both can chime in.
- kian 5y agoI've used both. Induction stoves are magical, and I also love gas. If you were going to electrify, go induction and you might even enjoy the fact that many things get to temperature faster.
- Frenchgeek 5y agoYou have more fine control over the heat with gas, but the timer in my cheap induction plate did save my bacon a few times...
- mustafa_pasi 5y agoYes that is true. I wish my induction stove allowed more fine tuning of the temperature as well.
- dependsontheq 5y agoThat’s the difference between cheap and expensive induction... I don’t need a Bain Marie because I can control the temperature that fine.
- chihuahua 5y agoThat could be useful for tempering chocolate. Have you tried this?
- dependsontheq 5y agoYes and it works fine, here is a weird Electrolux marketing photo https://www.reviewed.com/ovens/features/induction-101-better-cooking-through-science https://www.reviewed.com/ovens/features/induction-101-better... As weird as that looks I’m quite sure I could do that at home.
- hansthehorse 5y agoTemper chocolate with sous vide and you'll never fail again.
- Swizec 5y agoI have used gas, fire, electric, and modern electric (the glass kind). No induction yet. Modern electric is best for consistency and control. Gas is best for fast heat. (wood) Fire is amazing for smores, great for grilling if you have the time to turn it into a radiant heat source. Old electric (metal plates) sucks and is terrible.
- philips 5y agoI bought an Ikea induction to try it out alongside my gas stove. And it seems to heat my cast iron and steel pots and pans just as fast or faster than gas.
- z2 5y agoI mostly use gas. I loved my induction cooktop and its precise and fast heat control when I had it, but the only thing I didn't like was that it required all pots to be flat (I have round woks with only a tiny flat area) and everything had to be compatible with induction, so no clay or aluminum. Even on the traditional gas vs electric debate, the heating power of a gas cooktop isn't guaranteed -- smaller BTU rated stoves take forever to heat with their dinky flames. I once had one that maxed out at around 350F when using a big pan.
- gxqoz 5y agoI've seen several articles recently highlighting problems with gas stoves. Some of these are environmental critiques--gas needs to be retired to deal with climate change. Another critique is around indoor air quality: "On the air-quality front, at least, the evidence against gas stoves is damning. Although cooking food on any stove produces particulate pollutants, burning gas produces nitrogen dioxide, or NO2,, and sometimes also carbon monoxide, according to Brett Singer, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who studies indoor air quality. Brief exposures to air with high concentrations of NO2 can lead to coughing and wheezing for people with asthma or other respiratory issues, and prolonged exposure to the gas can contribute to the development of those conditions, according to the EPA. Homes with gas stoves can contain approximately 50 to 400 percent higher concentrations of NO2 than homes with electric stoves, often resulting in levels of indoor air pollution that would be illegal outdoors, according to a recent report by the Rocky Mountain Institute, a sustainability think tank. “NO2 is invisible and odorless, which is one of the reasons it’s gone so unnoticed,” Brady Seals, a lead author on the report, says." https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/10/gas-stoves-are-bad-you-and-environment/616700/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/10/gas-stov...
- analyte123 5y agoIndoor air pollution is only a serious problem for unvented gas stoves. Current building codes require venting for gas stoves and any gas stove installed in the 21st century will have a vent.
- KineticLensman 5y agoI've also used gas, electric (briefly, years ago) and now induction. Induction is superb: very precisely controllable for everything from long slow simmer to nuking. The flat surfaces are much easier to keep extremely clean and also serve as extra space for putting stuff down when a given ring isn't in use. The only sense in which I preferred the old gas system was the controls themselves which were rotary dials rather than long-press surfaces. But I'm used to that now.
- odiroot 5y agoI find making nice and runny scrambled eggs on electricity really hard to do. Actually induction is even harder with the pulses of energy dissipating so quickly.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoKenji's method for creamy scrambled eggs works great on induction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXTnq7srJRs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXTnq7srJRs
- pat2man 5y agoYou just need a thicker pan.
- cbovis 5y agoTry a pot not a pan, cook slowly, and turn often with a silicone spatula. I find this method to be fool proof! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7U5vTMM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7U5vTMM0
- odiroot 5y agoI use Gordon's way for years now but I can only make it work on gas. Thanks for the link though :)
- mountainboy 5y agoInduction stoves are the highest EMF polluting device in a typical household. In particular they emit a large magnetic field. source: https://emfcaution.com/home-appliances-emf-readings/#1_Induction_Cooktop https://emfcaution.com/home-appliances-emf-readings/#1_Induc... You can do what you want, but I'll stick with gas and a vent fan, thanks.
- throw0101a 5y ago> Induction stoves are the highest EMF polluting device in a typical household. In particular they emit a large magnetic field. And? You say this like the problem with this is obvious / self-evident. (Feel free to get technical: I have an EE.) The author of your source: > My interest in the topic of EMF radiation is two-fold: > I have studied Information Science and worked with router communication, Wi-Fi network, and fiber optics communication during the last 5 years. So I consider myself well-educated on parts of the technical aspects of the problem. > I am married to a wonderful girl who is hyper-sensitive. She can literally feel high levels of EMF radiation on her skin when she is near strong Wi-Fi signals or other sources of electromagnetic fields like induction stoves. * https://emfcaution.com/about-us/ https://emfcaution.com/about-us/
- IkmoIkmo 5y agoAnd to note, no evidence in double blind tests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivi...
- WalterBright 5y agoI love gas, too, but there's a problem. I installed a CO2 meter in my office. It goes off whenever the stove is used. Going from 600ppm to over a 1000ppm, if I forget to turn on the exhaust fan.
- globular-toast 5y agoIt's not close to a gas stove. Not by a long shot. It's just slightly better than normal electric because it doesn't have as much residual heat in the ring. The best thing induction hobs do is boil water, but it's still about half as quick as my kettle.
- handrous 5y agoI've looked into induction, but: 1) It seems like you have to spend a lot to approach even a cheap gas stove, as far as cooking quality; and 2) Even on (say) Reddit threads full of people posting about how great they are, the same people comment a lot about how careful they have to be with the cooktop or how many times they've cracked and ruined(!!!) theirs and had to replace it.
- cameronh90 5y agoGas is cheaper if you already have a gas installation. However nowadays most gas appliances are long gone and heating installations are increasingly switching to heat pumps. At that point, the cost to install gas just for cooking is hard to justify. Indeed that’s the reason most places I’ve lived no longer have a gas stove. The cost of adding a gas supply is just too high for it to be viable.
- handrous 5y ago> Gas is cheaper if you already have a gas installation. However nowadays most gas appliances are long gone and heating installations are increasingly switching to heat pumps. At that point, the cost to install gas just for cooking is hard to justify. This must be very regional. We get about 3-4 months of hot weather, and 3-4 months of cold, and gas furnaces are still installed in most new homes, because it's much more expensive to heat with electricity. No-one's replacing them with electrical furnaces, when replacing furnaces, certainly—no-one wants the extra expense. Gas stoves are uncommon on lower-end houses, becoming more common as you move up, but gas furnaces are basically standard across the board. Heat pumps are sometimes installed, but I've repeatedly been advised by local HVAC folks that, whatever their claimed efficiency, they're not a great idea in our climate. Certainly it gets too cold here to rely only on them.
- mynameisash 5y agoI have a ~$50 110v induction cooktop I bought on Amazon. It replaced the same thing from about 7 years before that worked pretty much flawlessly until we melted it on the other range. I never babied it - even took it camping, used it to cook in the backyard, and some very slow beer brewing with it. It's unreasonably awesome for the low price, and it makes cooking really fast and easy.
- anonporridge 5y agoHydrogen might be an option. Also for heating as a near drop in replacement for natural gas, although not without problems.
- mustafa_pasi 5y agoI grew up cooking on a gas stove, and have since gotten used to electric and induction as I started renting. Electric (with a heating element) is truly horrible. You have to constantly move the pan off the heating element when you want to reduce the heat. Induction, is however, very responsive and I don't really notice a difference between it and gas.
- batrat 5y agoSame. I have gas central heating and a gas stove. During the winter electricity is not 100% and is nice to have heating (with ups) or to make a hot tea.
- 0xffff2 5y agoI love to cook (even did it professionally for a while), and I just don't get this complaint. If you have good (i.e. thick) pans, response times aren't instant no matter what your heat source. I find the difference between gas and electric to be basically unnoticeable.
- renewiltord 5y agoWhat do you use for cooking traditionally done on curved cookware?
- 0xffff2 5y agoThe only thing that comes to mind when you say curved cookware is a wok. I've never owned a home stove, electric or gas, that got hot enough for proper wok stir frying so I have a standalone 14,000 BTU propane burner for that.
- samatman 5y agoThe contrary of this is that, for any given pan, pan + coil latency will be worse than pan + instant response, be that gas or induction. I find the difference between instant responding heat sources and radiant coils to be very noticeable, particularly with thin pans and delicate cooking, so: eggs, in particular.
- 0xffff2 5y agoOf course that's technically true. My point is that the difference in latency is completely unnoticeable for me. The adjustment is so minor if you have good technique and good pans it's not worth mentioning.
- ip26 5y agoI agree that response has mattered progressively less to me as I grow as a cook. However, that’s not really a line of argument that wins many followers.
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- hannob 5y agoIt is hardly plausible that a gas grid will be kept operating just for cooking. Generating the gas probably would even be feasible, as the amounts are likely small enough that they could be met with biomethane generated from waste, but operating the grid is unlikely.
- innocenat 5y agoThere are gas tanks.
- hannob 5y agoOk I guess I underestimated the amount of effort people are willing to put into nostalgia while cooking...
- chihuahua 5y agoMany houses in remote locations (in the U.S.) have large propane tanks outside the house, which are refilled periodically by a truck. So people are already doing this for reasons other than nostalgia.
- handrous 5y agoEveryone with a propane grill—which is, like, every other house around here—already has a propane tank. You can go swap them out with full tanks at many grocery stores, when they're empty. It's pretty cheap—I'm not sure, but I wouldn't bet on electric being cheaper to cook with than propane. There are conversion kits for gas stoves. And yes, you're right, that's exactly what anyone out in the country with a gas stove already does (as you note, they've got those big propane tanks outside the house that get refilled every so often). [EDIT] natural gas (not propane) is definitely cheaper to heat with, here, than electric. All the HVAC guys don't even recommend heat pumps to supplement the furnace. They recommend putting the money toward higher-efficiency AC and gas furnace instead. They say they're good on paper but more expensive in practice, in our climate (Midwest). Outright electric heating is crazy expensive (I've had it, with a very new furnace even, and it was terrible, was paying a high premium for mediocre heating).
- innocenat 5y agoOr you cook Chinese. Cooking Chinese food on induction is so painful.
- pat2man 5y agoYou could get a separate induction wok burner.
- oh_sigh 5y agoCooking with a wok was painful regardless on the biggest burner available on the last consumer gas hob I lived with.
- dredmorbius 5y agoThere are freestanding stoves which can be used where combustion-based heat is necessary. Many are aimed at camping or RV use (you'll see them often in VanLife conversions). So long as fuel is available (propane, butane, alcohol, white gas), this is an option. Note that white gas should not be used indoors.
- davidgould 5y agoI cook Chinese. Cooking on a typical gas rangetop is also painful. Not enough heat, and the wok is not very stable. I use a tabletop butane burner indoors (Iwatani 35FW) and it has at least 3x the heat and the wok is more stable.
- innocenat 5y agoI guess I overestimated US gas range. I live in Japan, and my consumer grade gas range I use is definitely more powerful than Iwatani 35FW.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- djrogers 5y agoI hope you live someplace that doesn't plan on eliminating them. My town is currently planning to change the permitting laws so that every kitchen/home remodel will require the removal of gas cooktops and ovens. There's a big outcry from those aware of it, but most people don't even know it's happening.
- sokoloff 5y agoThat will no doubt increase permitting compliance.
- jhallenworld 5y agoElectric stove is also safer around kids and elderly.. I have gas stove, hot water, dryers and heating. The hot water and heating were upgraded to gas fairly recently, from oil (I live in New England, there are a lot of legacy heating systems- oil was actually an upgrade in the 1940s from the original coal heat). There is strong incentive to do this because oil was costing me $3800 / year back when oil hit $5 a gallon, whereas gas costs $700 / year. This upgrade costs $14000 (includeing installation of forced air vents, central A/C and gas water heat tank). The previous upgrade from coal to oil was about reducing waste and increasing convenience. With coal, you had to deal with ash waste and stoking. A dual-stage electric heat pump would in theory work and have comparable operating cost, but the install cost was like $30000, had questionable reliability and few contractors even knew about it. Geothermal would also work, but my land is tiny and the cost would have been something like $60000. There was even a Honda generator home co-generation plant option available, but again, expensive and no contractors. What would you do? BTW, my largest utility bill now is actually water, because we are paying for the Boston harbor clean-up in my sewage bill. I'm tempted to illegally use rain water for the toilets... A rooftop solar system is popular around here, but it's not worth it based on my tiny electric bill. We have to get off of fossil fuels, but it's definitely going to take a government mandate backed with financial incentives to get people to switch.
- justaguy88 5y ago> use rain water for the toilets I'm curious about why that's not allowed
- jhallenworld 5y agoThey meter the sewage by the amount of water you use, so using an un-metered water source would short-change them. You do have the option of getting a separate water meter for water you use for gardening, to avoid the sewage bill for water you don't send down the drain.
- meepmorp 5y agoI've never heard of metering sewage before. Everywhere I've ever lived had a flat fee per home, or based it on square footage. Is the water utility owned by the local government?
- yongjik 5y agoWe have a new gas cooktop - we also looked up about the electric ones, but since the existing one was gas, we didn't know how much more it would cost to add wires across the house. It's pretty good and there are a few things you can't do with electric (like roasting a sheet of seaweed), but in general I think they're more or less comparable. One problem with gas is that so much heat is lost to the rising hot air - in addition to inefficiency, it makes all the pot handles burning hot, so I always need to have mittens ready. Never had the problem when I had electric.
- globular-toast 5y ago> it makes all the pot handles burning hot Never had that problem with gas. Not once.
- Symbiote 5y agoAre you using small pans on the larger burners?
- globular-toast 5y agoI've used all types of electric hob (that I'm aware of) hotplates, ceramic and induction, and they are all awful. Honestly I think the only people who can deal with them do nothing more than heat up tins of soup on them.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoSome jurisdictions forbid new installations of gas stoves, so over time society might not have much of a choice.
- dredmorbius 5y agoAnd some are contemplating retrofits to replace existing gas lines. Notably, San Francisco.
- davidgould 5y agoI'm hoping for this in Oakland, I'd love to go all electric.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- oh_sigh 5y agoThis sounds similar to the people who would refuse to upgrade to automobiles because horses were better than cars. Induction is better in almost every way over gas. There are a few minor things you can't do it with it, like wok cooking or charring peppers etc. But for those instances, there are easy workarounds, I just use my turkey fryer for wok work, and use a handheld blowtorch for charring.