7 ms·

I'll take 53 days. The stress and frustration of having to use an electric or induction stove every day would take a far greater toll.

sokoloff 5y ago
I have (and like) gas. I’d happily switch to induction but would never voluntarily go back to resistance electric.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  If you look carefully for the portable induction burners that are rated for ~1.3 kW, they are excellent. You can get them for about $100 and they would replace about half your cooktop usage. Much better for low temperature work and boiling type work.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    We have one and it’s great for low-and-slow unattended cooking. We don’t use it for regular/daily cooking because we just don’t have the space to give it, but agreed that it would work technically for a lot of our cooking if it took up space where the cooktop is or if our kitchen was bigger/had more countertop space.
abletonlive 5y ago
Don't know what you're talking about. Induction is far superior.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I feel it's only a matter of time until we start to identify health threats from inductive fields.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    The ones on a induction cooktop are pretty close-coupled and we’re surrounded by other EMF fields (natural and artificial); among the unknown unknown hazards in life, I suspect this one’s pretty low.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Possibly. This seems to state they typically exceed recommended exposure levels. Although I don't know what those levels were set using (what the consequences would be). So probably falls into the category of "everything has some risk or consequence, and it's a trade-off" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  How well does wok cooking work with induction?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ska 5y ago
  > Induction is far superior. I think it's a bit of a mixed bag. But surely we can agree electric coils and ifra tops are both terrible?
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    Growing up we had these excellent solid ceramic or metal (still not sure what the material was) burners on the stove. Definitely electric and far better than the coils or glass top burners. Never outside my childhood home have I seen them. Induction and gas are both good, I would prefer having both ideally, and one of those damn jet engine wok burners too.
- heydonovan 5y ago
  Disagree. The coils on an induction take way longer to heat up than gas, I've gone through that frustration. How can you beat instant fire? The top of it was always scratched which ruined the kitchen aesthetic. Also, our gas range saved us during the Texas freeze. Used my lighter to get the gas going and we were able to cook and stay warm for a bit, keeping the window open so we wouldn't die. If I'm out camping, sure, pairs well with my portable solar panels and goal zero.
  - benjiweber 5y ago
    Are you sure that's induction? I think time from hob off to to boiling water on induction is much faster (roughly half) gas. Starts heating pan immediately? Halogen and resistance hobs are less responsive though.
    - heydonovan 5y ago
      Am I sure? No, haha. Maybe I don't understand stove terminology. I thought induction were the metal coils that turn red. Maybe induction is different than a regular electric?
      - stinkytaco 5y ago
        Induction uses magnetic fields. You are thinking about a traditional electric stove.
  - abletonlive 5y ago
    >The coils on an induction take way longer to heat up than gas I think you might be confused about what induction is, might be worth a revisit to know the difference between induction vs a traditional electric cooktop.
- quasarj 5y ago
  Induction is almost as good as fire, but still not nearly as fast, and of course it doesn't work with 85% of my pans..
  - stinkytaco 5y ago
    Induction is far faster in my experience. I've worked with gas cooktops and my induction boils water at least 50% faster, if not more.
  - sliken 5y ago
    Every benchmark I've seen, things like boiling a quart of water show induction faster then electric faster than gas for comparable ranges. You sure about the pans? Generally if a magnet sticks to your pan you are good. You don't need new pans marketed as "induction ready", you just need ones that a magnet can stick to, i.e. not completely aluminum. Iron = ok, copper bottom = ok, any of the copper/AL/steel type sandwiches is ok. I've got a collection of pans from both sides of the family, years in college, and years since buying from various places. I've yet to find a pan/pon that does't work well. Also keep in mind that induction creates inside the pot/pan, fire has to start working on the outside and let it conduct through.
- Supermancho 5y ago
  > Don't know what you're talking about. Obviously. Talking about this is like looking at these articles, which often contradict each other: https://www.thekitchenguy.net/best-induction-cookware-review-guide/gas-cooktop-vs-induction-pros-cons/ https://www.thekitchenguy.net/best-induction-cookware-review... https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/appliances/a28435170/induction-stove-cooktop-pros-cons/ https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/appliances/a28435170/induct... From my experience: Accurate and immediate change in cooking temperature is important for many dishes and styles. With Induction, everything is gradual and this cannot be avoided. Might as well be microwaving some dishes. Gas stove wins. Ambient heat takes longer to dissipate from heated induction stoves which suffer from heat transfer to parts of the appliance, which is mitigated by a fan to a degree. Gas stove wins slightly. There is a claim that induction stoves and cooktops heat faster than electric and gas counterparts. This is true if you have the correct pan and it's the vast majority of dishes that don't mind the equalized cooking surface. Induction wins slightly. Gas stove pilot light can go out. Pretty dangerous. Induction is more expensive and requires new cookware, pushing that further. The "difficulty" to clean is a matter of learning. Go to home depot and get your glass scraper and cleaning solution, your Induction will be easier than your Gas...although you'll likely clean your Induction more often because of visibility. Induction is electric. If power goes out, you have no stove. I'm not sure who's worried about cooking in a blackout, but that could be a thing in a cabin, I guess. I think it largely depends on how good a cook you need to be. If you are looking for finer control, Gas all the way. If you are looking for safety and speed, Induction.
  - abletonlive 5y ago
    >With induction, everything is gradual The opposite. It's pretty much the same as gas. Even your article states so: "Induction stoves and cooktops offer precise temperature control. Electric cooktops take a lot of time to heat up and cool down, and it's difficult to hit a precise temperature with gas ranges. But with induction, you're afforded super precise temperature control which allows for more controlled cooking. When you turn the burner off, heat transfer stops immediately, so there's less of a chance of foods boiling over or overcooking." >Induction is more expensive and requires new cookware, pushing that further. I'm not sure if this is true, as far as new cookware. I guess it depends on who you are. I've never had cookware that was incompatible w/ induction.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  Commercial and restaurant kitchens are overwhelmingly gas, even though commercial induction ranges do exist. If induction were actually far superior, they would have switched by now. They haven't.
- HardwareLust 5y ago
  I completely disagree. I've had all 3 and gas is far superior to the other two. Yes, induction is better than electric coils but it pales in comparison to gas.
rat9988 5y ago
What stress
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jaywalk 5y ago
  I've never used induction, but electric is horrible. It takes a lot longer to heat things up, for one.
- Arainach 5y ago
  Electric (non-induction) is awful. Slow to heat up. Impossible to rapidly cool either for cooking or to make the stovetop safe to touch/sit things on after cooking. Constantly worrying about "is the burner still hot, will I/a guest accidentally touch it". Induction can be nice, but I now have to pay careful attention to any cooking vessel I buy until the end of time and ensure that it's compatible. I also would need to run a new 220V outlet along an exterior wall to my kitchen, expand my breaker box (which has been full for a while and is approaching full of half-height breakers), and so on. Not worth it to me. Gas is simple and reliable. It's instant on, instant off, and works in a power outage so long as I have matches around. I turn on my exhaust fan when I'm using it and have air filters in my house to catch other particulates. I just replaced my gas stove this year - with another gas stove.
com2kid 5y ago
I'm thinking of swapping my gas out for an induction, 100% due to health reasons. What issues due you have with induction? Everything I have seen says they heat up pots faster than gas.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Get a HEPA filter instead. Lots of cooking methods (especially involving high temperatures with fats) produce terrible air quality by themselves that you can only mitigate with either a prodigious vent fan or lots of HEPA filtration. I know this from measuring it in my own kitchen, air quality would spike to worse than the worst city globally for hours without filtration or minutes with.
  - com2kid 5y ago
    > Get a HEPA filter instead. Lots of cooking methods (especially involving high temperatures with fats) produce terrible air quality by themselves that you can only mitigate with either a prodigious vent fan or lots of HEPA filtration. > I know this from measuring it in my own kitchen, air quality would spike to worse than the worst city globally for hours without filtration or minutes with. HEPA filters don't help with NO2 levels. Air filters on the market that advertise activated charcoal are full of it, you need pounds of activated charcoal to make a huge difference, not the tiny little sheet that most filters use. FWIW I have 2 HEPA filters running, they don't help with spicy food either. Someone on HN once mentioned a real charcoal filter they had bought that had several pounds in it, but sadly I lost the comment and I don't remember the product they recommended.
ptkd 5y ago
have you ever used an induction stove? They are like an order of magnitude better. Easier to clean, much faster to heat stuff
- smallerfish 5y ago
  The UX of ours is mildly annoying - ON, minus to start at mid-temp, plus plus plus plus to get to 7, all with no feedback aside from the beep. I imagine there are better ones around with knobs or similar.
- asdff 5y ago
  That comes with an order of magnitude higher price to boot and whether these improvements are worth it is going to be subjective. For you, you must like your stove, but for me, the improvements are so slight. It takes me a few mins with a wet paper towel to wipe off grease from the stove after using it, I don't think induction would be that much faster since it would only mean I save the 5 seconds it takes to remove the grates over the burners presumably, since I still have to wipe up anyhow. I never felt like gas was too slow to heat either; the kitchen is full of opportunities for parallelizing tasks while one thing is heating anyway. To me these things just aren't worth the cost to buy a new stove and get rid of my old one that does the job today.
arcticbull 5y ago
As someone who loved gas, I have to say, induction cook tops are just as good if not better. You can boil a giant pot of water on an induction top in like 30 seconds flat, if you want. Heat starts and stops instantly. Works great with cast iron and stainless pans. Resistance cooktops are garbage, though.
Maxburn 5y ago
And they are your worst days after all.

sokoloff 5y ago

I have (and like) gas. I’d happily switch to induction but would never voluntarily go back to resistance electric.

colechristensen 5y ago
If you look carefully for the portable induction burners that are rated for ~1.3 kW, they are excellent. You can get them for about $100 and they would replace about half your cooktop usage. Much better for low temperature work and boiling type work.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  We have one and it’s great for low-and-slow unattended cooking. We don’t use it for regular/daily cooking because we just don’t have the space to give it, but agreed that it would work technically for a lot of our cooking if it took up space where the cooktop is or if our kitchen was bigger/had more countertop space.

abletonlive 5y ago

Don't know what you're talking about. Induction is far superior.

giantg2 5y ago
I feel it's only a matter of time until we start to identify health threats from inductive fields.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  The ones on a induction cooktop are pretty close-coupled and we’re surrounded by other EMF fields (natural and artificial); among the unknown unknown hazards in life, I suspect this one’s pretty low.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Possibly. This seems to state they typically exceed recommended exposure levels. Although I don't know what those levels were set using (what the consequences would be). So probably falls into the category of "everything has some risk or consequence, and it's a trade-off" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
How well does wok cooking work with induction?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ska 5y ago
> Induction is far superior. I think it's a bit of a mixed bag. But surely we can agree electric coils and ifra tops are both terrible?
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Growing up we had these excellent solid ceramic or metal (still not sure what the material was) burners on the stove. Definitely electric and far better than the coils or glass top burners. Never outside my childhood home have I seen them. Induction and gas are both good, I would prefer having both ideally, and one of those damn jet engine wok burners too.
heydonovan 5y ago
Disagree. The coils on an induction take way longer to heat up than gas, I've gone through that frustration. How can you beat instant fire? The top of it was always scratched which ruined the kitchen aesthetic. Also, our gas range saved us during the Texas freeze. Used my lighter to get the gas going and we were able to cook and stay warm for a bit, keeping the window open so we wouldn't die. If I'm out camping, sure, pairs well with my portable solar panels and goal zero.
- benjiweber 5y ago
  Are you sure that's induction? I think time from hob off to to boiling water on induction is much faster (roughly half) gas. Starts heating pan immediately? Halogen and resistance hobs are less responsive though.
  - heydonovan 5y ago
    Am I sure? No, haha. Maybe I don't understand stove terminology. I thought induction were the metal coils that turn red. Maybe induction is different than a regular electric?
    - stinkytaco 5y ago
      Induction uses magnetic fields. You are thinking about a traditional electric stove.
- abletonlive 5y ago
  >The coils on an induction take way longer to heat up than gas I think you might be confused about what induction is, might be worth a revisit to know the difference between induction vs a traditional electric cooktop.
quasarj 5y ago
Induction is almost as good as fire, but still not nearly as fast, and of course it doesn't work with 85% of my pans..
- stinkytaco 5y ago
  Induction is far faster in my experience. I've worked with gas cooktops and my induction boils water at least 50% faster, if not more.
- sliken 5y ago
  Every benchmark I've seen, things like boiling a quart of water show induction faster then electric faster than gas for comparable ranges. You sure about the pans? Generally if a magnet sticks to your pan you are good. You don't need new pans marketed as "induction ready", you just need ones that a magnet can stick to, i.e. not completely aluminum. Iron = ok, copper bottom = ok, any of the copper/AL/steel type sandwiches is ok. I've got a collection of pans from both sides of the family, years in college, and years since buying from various places. I've yet to find a pan/pon that does't work well. Also keep in mind that induction creates inside the pot/pan, fire has to start working on the outside and let it conduct through.
Supermancho 5y ago
> Don't know what you're talking about. Obviously. Talking about this is like looking at these articles, which often contradict each other: https://www.thekitchenguy.net/best-induction-cookware-review-guide/gas-cooktop-vs-induction-pros-cons/ https://www.thekitchenguy.net/best-induction-cookware-review... https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/appliances/a28435170/induction-stove-cooktop-pros-cons/ https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/appliances/a28435170/induct... From my experience: Accurate and immediate change in cooking temperature is important for many dishes and styles. With Induction, everything is gradual and this cannot be avoided. Might as well be microwaving some dishes. Gas stove wins. Ambient heat takes longer to dissipate from heated induction stoves which suffer from heat transfer to parts of the appliance, which is mitigated by a fan to a degree. Gas stove wins slightly. There is a claim that induction stoves and cooktops heat faster than electric and gas counterparts. This is true if you have the correct pan and it's the vast majority of dishes that don't mind the equalized cooking surface. Induction wins slightly. Gas stove pilot light can go out. Pretty dangerous. Induction is more expensive and requires new cookware, pushing that further. The "difficulty" to clean is a matter of learning. Go to home depot and get your glass scraper and cleaning solution, your Induction will be easier than your Gas...although you'll likely clean your Induction more often because of visibility. Induction is electric. If power goes out, you have no stove. I'm not sure who's worried about cooking in a blackout, but that could be a thing in a cabin, I guess. I think it largely depends on how good a cook you need to be. If you are looking for finer control, Gas all the way. If you are looking for safety and speed, Induction.
- abletonlive 5y ago
  >With induction, everything is gradual The opposite. It's pretty much the same as gas. Even your article states so: "Induction stoves and cooktops offer precise temperature control. Electric cooktops take a lot of time to heat up and cool down, and it's difficult to hit a precise temperature with gas ranges. But with induction, you're afforded super precise temperature control which allows for more controlled cooking. When you turn the burner off, heat transfer stops immediately, so there's less of a chance of foods boiling over or overcooking." >Induction is more expensive and requires new cookware, pushing that further. I'm not sure if this is true, as far as new cookware. I guess it depends on who you are. I've never had cookware that was incompatible w/ induction.
Turing_Machine 5y ago
Commercial and restaurant kitchens are overwhelmingly gas, even though commercial induction ranges do exist. If induction were actually far superior, they would have switched by now. They haven't.
HardwareLust 5y ago
I completely disagree. I've had all 3 and gas is far superior to the other two. Yes, induction is better than electric coils but it pales in comparison to gas.

rat9988 5y ago

What stress

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jaywalk 5y ago
I've never used induction, but electric is horrible. It takes a lot longer to heat things up, for one.
Arainach 5y ago
Electric (non-induction) is awful. Slow to heat up. Impossible to rapidly cool either for cooking or to make the stovetop safe to touch/sit things on after cooking. Constantly worrying about "is the burner still hot, will I/a guest accidentally touch it". Induction can be nice, but I now have to pay careful attention to any cooking vessel I buy until the end of time and ensure that it's compatible. I also would need to run a new 220V outlet along an exterior wall to my kitchen, expand my breaker box (which has been full for a while and is approaching full of half-height breakers), and so on. Not worth it to me. Gas is simple and reliable. It's instant on, instant off, and works in a power outage so long as I have matches around. I turn on my exhaust fan when I'm using it and have air filters in my house to catch other particulates. I just replaced my gas stove this year - with another gas stove.

com2kid 5y ago

I'm thinking of swapping my gas out for an induction, 100% due to health reasons. What issues due you have with induction? Everything I have seen says they heat up pots faster than gas.

colechristensen 5y ago
Get a HEPA filter instead. Lots of cooking methods (especially involving high temperatures with fats) produce terrible air quality by themselves that you can only mitigate with either a prodigious vent fan or lots of HEPA filtration. I know this from measuring it in my own kitchen, air quality would spike to worse than the worst city globally for hours without filtration or minutes with.
- com2kid 5y ago
  > Get a HEPA filter instead. Lots of cooking methods (especially involving high temperatures with fats) produce terrible air quality by themselves that you can only mitigate with either a prodigious vent fan or lots of HEPA filtration. > I know this from measuring it in my own kitchen, air quality would spike to worse than the worst city globally for hours without filtration or minutes with. HEPA filters don't help with NO2 levels. Air filters on the market that advertise activated charcoal are full of it, you need pounds of activated charcoal to make a huge difference, not the tiny little sheet that most filters use. FWIW I have 2 HEPA filters running, they don't help with spicy food either. Someone on HN once mentioned a real charcoal filter they had bought that had several pounds in it, but sadly I lost the comment and I don't remember the product they recommended.

ptkd 5y ago

have you ever used an induction stove? They are like an order of magnitude better. Easier to clean, much faster to heat stuff

smallerfish 5y ago
The UX of ours is mildly annoying - ON, minus to start at mid-temp, plus plus plus plus to get to 7, all with no feedback aside from the beep. I imagine there are better ones around with knobs or similar.
asdff 5y ago
That comes with an order of magnitude higher price to boot and whether these improvements are worth it is going to be subjective. For you, you must like your stove, but for me, the improvements are so slight. It takes me a few mins with a wet paper towel to wipe off grease from the stove after using it, I don't think induction would be that much faster since it would only mean I save the 5 seconds it takes to remove the grates over the burners presumably, since I still have to wipe up anyhow. I never felt like gas was too slow to heat either; the kitchen is full of opportunities for parallelizing tasks while one thing is heating anyway. To me these things just aren't worth the cost to buy a new stove and get rid of my old one that does the job today.

arcticbull 5y ago

As someone who loved gas, I have to say, induction cook tops are just as good if not better. You can boil a giant pot of water on an induction top in like 30 seconds flat, if you want. Heat starts and stops instantly. Works great with cast iron and stainless pans. Resistance cooktops are garbage, though.

Maxburn 5y ago

And they are your worst days after all.