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The case for induction cooking

• redocneknurd 5y ago
  is this an influencing operation to make people less dependent on Russian gas?
  • coderenegade 5y ago
    I think it's more likely to be a marketing campaign that's capitalizing on the Ukraine crisis. Articles like this were popping up last year, but it's ramped up a lot lately.
• antattack 5y ago
  Cooking with gas releases SO2, NOx, CO and PM2.5 In winter, when people don't open their windows the pollution will accumulate. Induction cooking is not just better because of less pollution at home, it's cheaper than gas cooking and is easy on the power grid, many solar installations can power it directly.
• arealaccount 5y ago
  We need a new stove, been trying to get an induction. Mostly for the convenience for cleaning, and fast boiling. Can’t find them anywhere. Particularly one with a double oven. Going to install the gas line because there are way more options available.
• mikelemmon 5y ago
  Oddly, the headline image of this article does not appear to be from an induction stove. Induction stoves do not glow red at all.
  • phphphphp 5y ago
    they don’t glow from heat but they can glow by design: for safety reasons, some have lights that simulate glowing from heat. I guess the choice of image is a little curious, given the primary distinction between induction vs. traditional is, typically, the absence of external heat.
    • Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      At risk of sounding dangerously stupid, what exactly is the safety concern? Given that induction is cool to the touch, it's not obvious to me how you'd hurt yourself (which is doubtless another major advantage of gas).
      • phphphphp 5y ago
        They're not cold to the touch once they've been used: the induction process heats the pan, but heat from the pan will transfer back to the glass. If you use an induction cooker for 20 minutes, and then immediately place your hand on the glass, your hand will be burned.
  • ryanianian 5y ago
    My (Samsung) induction-capable cooktop has resistive heating as a "backup" for cookware that is not induction-compatible. Theoretically this can be disabled using an app, although the app has never worked.
  • lom 5y ago
    The article mentioned that some induction ovens come with lights attached to emulate the feeling of fire…
  • magicalhippo 5y ago
    > Induction stoves do not glow red at all. Which is great for safety. Yes it gets hot if a pot has been boiling for a while, but it's a far cry from regular resistive ceramic tops. Just bringing some water to the boil is not enough to make it more than uncomfortably hot. Try touching a resistive heater top after doing that...
• jnmandal 5y ago
  The importance of this transition can not be understated.
  • oblio 5y ago
    I don't know why you're downvoted. Induction hobs cut out a loss leader for gas: gas stoves. Once you have gas in your home it makes sense to install the main moneymaker: a gas furnace for heating. It's how they upsell. Induction hobs are great in the fight against global warming.
    • Sqwandery 5y ago
      If the energy you use for heat is generated by gas, it's more efficient to burn it directly, and the emissions produced from manufacturing all the new stoves likely out way the emissions produced over the stoves lifetime. So, I'd say it's only helpful if you are getting a new stove anyway.
      • briHass 5y ago
        Of course, one also has to consider the leakage of methane that occurs with all the residential natural gas distribution, which is significant. Methane being 25x the greenhouse potential of CO2 means there's a lot of hidden environmental impact.
      • oblio 5y ago
        Stoves have to be replaced at some point, especially when doing renovations or rebuilding.
• hprotagonist 5y ago
  my local library will let you check out a portable induction hob. The last time i checked, the waiting list was about a month long, which certainly speaks to the interest in the idea. As long as my rangeware doesn't warp, I'm all for more even heating! It didn't occur to me until very recently that a reason why pans might warp on an induction hob is that they can now heat up fast enough to thermal shock on the way up, not just on the way down (by, e.g., taking the pan you just seared meat off in and dunking it in cold dishwater)
  • rexreed 5y ago
    Ikea sells a portable one for $55 (in the US). I know not free like the library, but if you want quick and portable access, I've used it and it's very good: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-cooktop-1-zone-white-10493520/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-coo...
    • amelius 5y ago
      You also need a special pan, which is probably at least as expensive.
      • matthewowen 5y ago
        Unless there’s something weird about that cooktop, you almost certainly don’t need new pans. Copper doesn’t work, but cast iron, carbon steel, stainless steel all do.
        • prometheus76 5y ago
          Older stainless steel pans do not work. Stainless is not magnetic. Most newer stainless pans have a layer of iron sandwiched between stainless layers on the bottom of the pan. I have a set of older stainless pans I inherited from my mother and they do not work with my induction burner.
        • earleybird 5y ago
• musikele 5y ago
  "Although induction technology has been around for decades and is established in Europe, it has yet to catch on extensively here. According to Consumer Reports, induction cooktops and ranges are installed in only under 5 percent of homes in the United States." That's why, for a european like me, an article like this one seems totally extraneous to hacker news front page
  • benoliver999 5y ago
    I do think I could use an upgrade though, my induction hub just clicks on and off PWM style. Not great for a steady heat. Having read this article I noticed that they aren't all like this.
    • schroeding 5y ago
      Can absolutely recommend the upgrade, these stoves are far superior to PWM style "2000W or off" ones. I can even melt chocolate without a water bath on mine, they can keep temperatures as low as 55°C / 131°F steadily no problem. :D
      • angry_octet 5y ago
        I just have to be pedantic and say that what you are describing is the very opposite of PWM, which runs at high frequencies (e.g. 30kHz), varying the duty cycle over the tiny slice of time. The only problem with good PWM is audible harmonics, usually only children can hear them.
        • muxator 5y ago
          I disagree. The definition of what is high and what is low frequency depends on what you are comparing. If you are comparing electric capacitances of electric circuits vs the thermal capacitance of a macroscopic object, 1 Hz might be a high enough frequency for doing pwm.
          • benoliver999 5y ago
• neonate 5y ago
  https://archive.ph/4hCMv https://archive.ph/4hCMv
• dimitrios1 5y ago
  "perils" is just a tad dramatic here. And while there are many advantages to induction over gas (the faster boiling times have me sold alone), there are some disadvantages in my opinion to placing even more reliance on a electrical grid that we learn each day is more fragile than we once thought.
  • beachy 5y ago
    Not just the grid but the fickle nature of power electronics. Our induction cooktop fried its driver circuitry last year and we were stuck cooking off a camp stove for weeks while waiting for a part from Germany. Old school cooking methods are less high tech and more repairable.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • buran77 5y ago
    I think today more than ever we can agree that relying on gas may put any country in a far more precarious position. Remember that you can make enough electricity at home if need be, even if at a hefty cost maybe. The same cannot be said for the gas to power your stove and heating for any reasonable cost.
    • dimitrios1 5y ago
      No, I don't think we can agree on that, especially not in America, where a mere 3 short years ago, we had an abundance of natural gas, and prices plummeting to near record lows (adjusted for inflation). The current situation we are in is due to bad policy.
      • buran77 5y ago
        So you do not agree that relying on gas may put any country in a far more precarious situation? It's happening as we speak to countries which did exactly that so your agreement was not actually sought, it was a mere figure of speech. It also doesn't help your argument when you go on to confirm that even countries with large reserves can put themselves in such a precarious situation with no help from the outside. The truth of the matter is that any country would be in a more secure position relying on resources that are regenerable, can be produced locally, and whose network can cope with a higher measure of decentralization. They make both the grid/network and the country itself more resilient regardless of "policy". As I said, you can't make your own gas and an outage for the wholly centralized gas distribution system can have dire consequences that would be lessened or even eliminated for setups like rooftop solar and heat-pump.
• leoedin 5y ago
  I fitted an AEG induction hob in our kitchen about 3 years ago. It is absolutely amazing. It's so controllable - you can go from "barely hot enough to melt chocolate" to "so hot your pans start discolouring and everything burns" - and back again - in seconds (and everything in-between obviously). I always thought gas was the best for cooking. But I was wrong - induction is. Gas is great for medium-high power cooking, but it falls apart for lower temps, and it's very hard to get it consistent. The only time I really miss gas is when stir frying - you can't really use woks on induction. It's also wipe clean!
  • noveltyaccount 5y ago
    I got a flat bottom wok that I am happy stir frying on my induction cooktop. The flat bottom gets rippin hot and the sides only warm. Have to work within that smaller hot zone but I prefer the wok to skillet for containing the mess.
    • eyeball 5y ago
      wok cooking is the main place I find induction lacking sides stay far too cool. luckily I don't do it that often so just bought one of those butane table top burners for those cases.
      • radicalbyte 5y ago
        In our previous house we cooked with gas, we had a fantastic stove with a wok burner. Amazing thing. With our new house we - against my best judgement - went for induction. It's amazing, way better than our old gas stove. I'll never go back.
        • eyeball 5y ago
          you find a flat induction stove better than a gas one with wok ring for wok cooking?
          • 5y ago
• euthymiclabs 5y ago
  I can't say enough good things about my induction cooktop. It's as responsive as gas, but puts out more power than a home gas stove. Plus, it's incredibly easy to clean. Love it.
• noveltyaccount 5y ago
  I switched from gas to induction during a kitchen remodel about 18 months ago. Took a couple of days to get used to, but it is considerably better than gas. Zero regrets. Faster, more precise, holds temperature better. E.g., I fry an egg on 6. Every time, I can reproduce my ideal fried egg (unless I break the yolk). When I was shopping for appliances about half of the salespeople tried to talk me into gas, but a few loved induction and boosted my confidence to take the plunge. Look at consumer reports ratings for induction cooktops, they universally score 98+ points. The best gas cooktops top out below the worst induction cooktops. No regrets.
  • silisili 5y ago
    Commenting here as I don't think it's really worth a top level. I feel it really depends on the person. For most Americans, induction is great. It's dead simple, repeatable, etc. But, I hate it! I cook on cast iron. My wife cooks with a stir fry pan or wok. We went from gas to induction and both of us absolutely hated it. It's so hard to cook if you learned in a natural fire environment. I hate having gas at all, I just wish there was a way to mimic its behavior.
    • noveltyaccount 5y ago
      I cook a lot on carbon steel and love it on induction. Seems to heat more evenly than on gas and heats up faster. Maybe you'd like it - seasons and performs the same as cast iron, but less material. Matfer Bourgeat is the brand I have.
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  We've been using one for years. It rocks. I just removed the stupid efficiency comment. Not worth the agita, and I'm probably mistaken.
  • noveltyaccount 5y ago
    I thought induction was the most efficient cooking method, since no wasted energy goes into heating the air around the pan.
  • pauldavis 5y ago
    No, it actually does very well by that measure. Nothing needless to cooking is heated.
  • jwr 5y ago
    Incorrect, it actually is much more efficient.
  • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    I just removed the stupid efficiency comment. Not worth the agita, and I'm probably mistaken.
    • tedunangst 5y ago
      Where does the wasted energy from your induction stove go?
    • buran77 5y ago
      With induction charging you're trying to charge a battery and unfortunately producing heat in the process which is unwanted and entirely a waste. With induction stoves pretty much all the electricity is converted to heat in the bottom of the pan which is exactly what you want. A minor portion is lost elsewhere in the circuitry but not much in the grand scheme of things. Efficiency refers to the ration between what you put in towards a goal and how much of it actually turned into that goal. Things that produce rhat with electricity tend to be 100% efficient because any waste usually happens to be heat. An induction stove certain shouldn't have lower efficiency compared to a regular electric stove so maybe check if it's not a local issue.
• zdragnar 5y ago
  I recently got one, and there is a major drawback: there is a coil whine that drives my tinnitis absolutely bonkers. I like how it cooks, but hate using it.
  • jahewson 5y ago
    This could be your pans, the multiple layers of cladding on the bottom can produce a very high-pitch noise.
    • convolvatron 5y ago
      i have a stainless on aluminum pot that does this alot, and a stainless with a sleel slug at the base that does this a little. cast iron is quiet
  • baq 5y ago
    it's the cookware. move it around a bit. you can also try using a paper towel in between the hob and pan. (haven't had one catch fire - before you ask :))
  • bliteben 5y ago
    Its annoying and I could certainly see this happening as different pans do have different noises, for me I'm not sure I could have found an egg pan without noise on the induction I had until it died.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• throw0101a 5y ago
  Cooking with natural gas is thought by some people to be very good, but food YouTuber Adam Ragusea is not a fan of it in the home he recently moved into: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcAJ3_-Hou8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcAJ3_-Hou8
• prometheus76 5y ago
  Amateur home cook offering my experience using a portable induction cooktop next to my electric stove top. I'm in the US, so my induction cooktop is an anemic 1800 watt one because it's 120V, instead of the beefier European/Asian models that are 3500W 220V versions. That out of the way, here are the positives from my perspective: * induction boils a pot of water dramatically faster * the pots, in general, heat up much faster and reach cooking temperatures VERY fast (as in, under two minutes) * the surface itself only heats up as a result of the pan itself back-heating the surface of the cooktop. * fixed, known heat settings for specific temperatures. * almost instant pan response to temperature setting changes. Here are the downsides from my perspective: * No fine control of the "heat". I have eight temperature settings ranging from 140F to 460F. That's a wide range with only ten steps, so I frequently wish I had more fine control of the settings, especially at the lower end. The steps are 140F, 212F, 260F, 300F, 350F, 400F, 425F, and 460F. * Fan noise. The unit has a built-in fan that is very noticeable. * It's much easier to burn sauces, because the heat right at the cooking surface seems to be much hotter because it hasn't radiated throughout the whole pan yet. (Please feel free to just say "git gud" at my poor skills.) I don't really know how to articulate this well, but I find myself adjusting for a certain level of boiling, but being surprised at how hot the bottom of the pan actually is, which leads to a burned sauce. * Only works with certain pans. Most of my cookware is newer and designed to work with induction stoves, but I have a complete set of expensive stainless cookware that I inherited from my mother, and it doesn't work with the induction burner. Works great with cast iron and enameled cast iron, and I have a nonstick aluminum pan that has an iron plate on the bottom, so it works fine. I also have an all-clad stainless frying pan that is triple-layer, and one of those layers is iron, so it works well also. Any non-magnetic pans will not work (copper, aluminum, and older stainless pans). I use my induction burner when I am cooking something for a long time outside, when I am boiling pasta or making lighter soups, and for deep frying. I use my conventional electric stove when I am cooking meat, sauces, or thicker stews.
  • throw0101a 5y ago
    > I'm in the US, so my induction cooktop is an anemic 1800 watt one because it's 120V, instead of the beefier European/Asian models that are 3500W 220V versions. If you ever wish to 'upgrade', what you can do is change a plug in your kitchen from the typical NEMA 5-{15,20} to a NEMA 6-{15,20} and then wire it in the panel to 240V, as there are 'commercial' induction cookers available: * https://eurodib.com/products/commercial-induction-cooker/?currency=USD https://eurodib.com/products/commercial-induction-cooker/?cu... * https://www.amazon.com/Eurodib-IHE3097-P2-Commercial-Induction-Cooker/dp/B002JCSNAG https://www.amazon.com/Eurodib-IHE3097-P2-Commercial-Inducti... * https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7WXQMQ/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7WXQMQ/
• farmerstan 5y ago
  I used an induction stove for 6 weeks and despised it. Maybe the one I used isn’t the same as what others are using but it would turn on and off over and over again and I found the temperature to be completely unpredictable. I hated it
  • yakak 5y ago
    That's been my experience with vitroceramic, I've never had a chance to try a true induction.
  • jamesliudotcc 5y ago
    I have experienced cheap induction tops that do that. The better ones don't. Mine you can tell it a temperature and it sticks it there, so I can basically tell it to slowly simmer a curry or stew and it does the simmering for me. I walk away for hours at a time. It's been more than a decade, so when I have to cook on anything else but that induction top, I find that I burn everything from neglect.
    • smiley1437 5y ago
      Using induction and setting the temp to 190F, I've reduced entire bottles of wine to a thick syrup with almost zero attention, never had a scorch. I would never risk that on any other stove type.
  • coderenegade 5y ago
    This was my experience as well. Very finicky surface that required the pan to be in exactly the right place, and touch controls that were a pain in the ass to use. And we were cooking Chinese food, so no woks. I'll stick with gas, myself.
• amznbyebyebye 5y ago
  Can’t fry a fulka without the flame.
• itcrowd 5y ago
  Induction cooking is good. UI is terrible: touch screen that only allows control over one heat source at a time. Please, please please give me knobs like the ones in gas tops
  • smilespray 5y ago
    Not only is the UI terrible (wet hands and touch based interfaces are terrible), but pets may accidentally turn on the induction if they are prone to walking across your kitchen counter.
    • gruturo 5y ago
      This should not be a concern (the danger due to pets, not the terrible UI, which is, indeed, terrible): All modern induction cooktops will not actually engage unless they "feel" a metallic mass which reacts to the magnetic field. If there's nothing, or anything else than an induction-compatible pan/pot on top of the hob, it won't do anything and will turn itself off after 30ish seconds. So unless you leave pans and pots on the hobs when you're not cooking, you're good.
  • random_upvoter 5y ago
    Same complaint here. Touch screen that stops working when it gets only slightly wet. I'm forever wiping down that stupid touch screen.
  • gwinsyth 5y ago
    Depends on brand. I have one with 4 distinct controls for each heat source. But when I was changing my stove, this was something I looked for - I've used those that can set only one heat source at the time, and they are infuriating for me too. As for knobs, I'm willing to bet that there are some induction stoves with knobs.
    • morsch 5y ago
      There are. Like you said, you just have to know that's a feature you want and look out for it.
• bertjk 5y ago
  Wow. If this doesn't read like a submarine article[1], I don't know what does. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
• germinalphrase 5y ago
  Give me more options with actual knobs for control and I’m in.
  • shamskazi 5y ago
    Breville's the Control Freak does it well, but $1500!
    • germinalphrase 5y ago
      Yea. Give me that in an oven range.
      • gerikson 5y ago
        We have a Bertazzoni range with knobs (we live in Sweden). They are pricey though.
        • germinalphrase 5y ago
          Other than price, are you happy with it?
          • gerikson 5y ago
            Yes. It is a bit ”buzzy” but the external controls make up for it.
• mssdvd 5y ago
  For me the main advantage of induction cooking is that it does not heat the surrounding environment.
  • bliteben 5y ago
    Super nice how it doesn't cook food to the surface.
• ptomato 5y ago
  Let me know when you can buy one of decent quality in the US with actual physical controls instead of some insane touch system designed by somebody who has apparently never actually been in a kitchen and marketed to people who won't use it but just want a thing that looks cool.
  • ceejayoz 5y ago
    Ugh, my parents have an oven like that. Press the "bake" button and it'll happily tell you you have to press the "on" button first. Infuriating design, and you have to mash your thumb for a good 1-2 seconds before it reads the press, too. Or our old Samsung washing machine, that wouldn't let you turn it off and on again without listening to the startup and shutdown songs first. (Our newer LG is much better in this regard.)
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • cout 5y ago
      Sounds like a child safety feature since most slide-in ovens have controls on the front.
  • gcheong 5y ago
    Are there any like that anywhere? I would think part of the problem is that induction settings are usually in discrete steps so a knob, which is what I assume you mean by physical control, may not be any better than a simple +\- control and would stick up from a seamless cooktop. Also, the highest end ones like Thermadors seem to focus on making the entire cooktop usable which kind of breaks the discrete burner area paradigm that knobs would suggest. Closest I’ve seems is a little puck on Samsung cooktops that you can use to adjust the controls but I would hate worrying about losing it.
    • bluGill 5y ago
      I want 200 discrete settings then, so a knob is better. Or at least I think I want that considering how many micro adjustments I make on all stoves I've used before
• nemo1618 5y ago
  Warning to anyone thinking about buying one of those portable induction cooktop ("just to see what all the fuss is about"): if it plugs into a standard 120V socket, it's probably not going to boil water any faster than your existing stove! In fact, mine boils even slower than my electric stove. Apparently, the portable ones only go up to around 1800W. If you want to experience the true boil-the-oceans power of induction, you have to get a full range that runs on 240V; those can draw closer to 7000W. Granted, you can still benefit from the precise temperature setting and the ease of cleaning, but don't expect it to be an apples-to-apples comparison.
  • azalemeth 5y ago
    120V is only standard in a part of the world. It's much more helpful to talk about power -- where I am 3 kW is limiting on a standard socket, at 230V. What is it for the US (I don't know!) Note -- electric hobs and ovens are often wired into far far chunkier circuits and the high efficiency of induction is a big boon. It's wonderful to cook on -- all the responsiveness of gas, none of the pm2.5. It's just a shame that per kWh, electricity is a lot more expensive.
    • tedunangst 5y ago
      Somewhere around 15 amps is almost always the limit for basic circuits, making voltage an easy proxy for available power.
      • Kon-Peki 5y ago
        This house I just bought (in the US) has a really odd kitchen that includes a gas cooktop combined with an electric double oven. It's wired directly to the breaker box in the basement with a 35-amp fuse.
        • com2kid 5y ago
          Oh wow that is... backwards. I'd want an induction cooktop and a gas oven! The gas oven solely so I can do the broil thing and get a good sear from direct flame.
• cafemachiavelli 5y ago
  I'm German and switched to induction from (old) electric after moving to a nicer apartment. Despite ostensibly knowing about its responsiveness before I still ended up with slightly underdone food for the first week - if you turn off the stove, it will get cold almost immediately, no/little residual heat to make use of. It also comes with the vaguely flashy feature of letting you run one stove plate with twice the energy by temporarily disabling its neighbor. Since the dial goes up to 9.5 regularly, I call the power boost setting "19" and relish in the knowledge that I'm 8 steps ahead of Spinal Tap.
  • Gibbon1 5y ago
    Now I want a cook top with a burner that goes to 11. My last gas stove had a 'hot' burner. Problem was the scaling doesn't match the other burners. I have a glass top range now and it sucks. Problem is most of the good induction units in the US are built in cooktops. Good ranges (combined cooktop+oven) are $$$$.
    • Ourgon 5y ago
      > Problem is most of the good induction units in the US are built in cooktops. Good ranges (combined cooktop+oven) are $$$$. Build one yourself, that's what I did when I bought my house in the Netherlands somewhere in the 90's. I wanted induction and a hot-air oven but did not want to pay for the privilege. I built a heavy wooden frame sized to fit the oven and the induction cooker, made a drawer for oven utensils in the bottom and a hard-wood ring around the hole for the induction cooker. Wooded sides make of glued floor boards. Once the hardware arrived I could simply drop and slide it in place, wire it up to the connection box I made on the back and plug it in - voila, an induction range with hot-air oven on the somewhat-less-expensive. I sold the house 5 years later and moved to Sweden where I now cook on a wood-burning stove, from the future to the past. I like the past better, it also fits my rather dynamic cooking style - sliding and banging heavy cast-iron pans around is far less precarious on a cast-iron stove.
      • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        We are thinking about doing something similar for our kitchen. We currently have a gas range with a over range microwave, but want to replace all that with an induction cook top and a dedicated range hood vented outside (under cabinet or built-in, 700 CFM or so). We lose our microwave and our oven, so we have ti replace those somewhere. I’m liking the microwave oven combos (not the combined microwave convection oven, though that is cool also), which we would have to build a new cabinet for elsewhere, not beneath the cooktop (or maybe a drawer microwave beneath the cook top and the oven…somewhere else?).
• legohead 5y ago
  Natural gas is far cheaper, so I'll stick with that. Even though I love the idea of an easy to clean stovetop. My electric bill is already out of control (California).
  • upofadown 5y ago
    You might want to do the math. Induction is quite a lot more efficient at actually heating the food. Even regular electric is more efficient at heating the food than gas.
    • londons_explore 5y ago
      When gas is 4x cheaper per kWh, electric isn't going to win cost-wise, even if 100% efficient.
      • Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        Have you done that math? The "even if 100% efficient" doesn't sound right to me. Wouldn't that imply gas cooking is 25% efficient? Admittedly, induction isn't 100% efficient, but it's very efficient! A gas flame heats up everything around it, whereas induction only heats up your cookware. The surface of an induction stove without any cookware is cool to the touch; in other cases, it's warm only due to the heat radiated back from your cookware.
        • londons_explore 5y ago
          Induction also heats up the power electronics inside the cooker. That's why they need a beefy cooling fan. I have done the math... Induction is 84% efficient, and gas is 40% efficient. So for most people, gas is still cheaper, unless you live in an area with very cheap hydroelectric.
          • Wowfunhappy 5y ago
            Gas is 40% efficient at heating food? Where are you getting these numbers? I have no counter information here, but that just doesn't seem intuitively correct at all. With gas, you're creating a fire that is heating up everything around it!
• jamesliudotcc 5y ago
  I have an induction cooktop form Cooktek, which I originally bought in 2007, which I carry around with me everywhere. One more thing about how it is great. Since it heats the pan directly instead of the air underneath the pan, you can boil water for pasta without heating up the kitchen. Now, many of you have A/C to keep your kitchen comfortable, but then you are heating up the kitchen with the stove and then cooling it down with the A/C ... My friends are not convinced. I get responses anywhere from no way to it's ok for me maybe but they really just love the feel of cooking on gas. These are supposedly environmentalists, too.
• BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  I did not know that induction cooking is a novelty (or at least worthy of an article) in the US. When you go to an appliance shop in France they would be 90% of the offer (and 9% gas, 1% vitro-electric). BTW the big photo on the top of the article is not induction but vitro-ceramic (the first version of something that would look at glass and not have flames, but this is not induction, just heating of a tingie under the glass plate) Having used gaz since childhood for 30 years, the move to induction was fantastic. The only drawback is that you cannot cook with the cookware tilted (to pour some liquid into a small puddle and heat it directly, for instance)
  • mytailorisrich 5y ago
    France moved to 100% electric in many places decades ago because of their strategic choice of nuclear energy.
    • phtrivier 5y ago
      As another commenter said, it was electric but "vitro ceramic", so terrible performance and pretty dangerous. This actually gave gas a "better rap". Now I honestly only use gas at the moment because I moved in recently enough that I haven't bother to change - but it's getting higher on n my list every day...
      • formerly_proven 5y ago
        > it was electric but "vitro ceramic", so terrible performance and pretty dangerous How exactly is that dangerous?
        • mikeyouse 5y ago
          As one anecdote, since there’s no flame (vs gas stove) and the surface is happy to heat whatever is on it (vs induction which needs a magnetic metal) — my cousin burned down their family home by setting her book bag on the stove after school one day. It’s unclear how it got turned on but the end result was pretty terrible for them and likely wouldn’t have happened with a different stove.
• miduil 5y ago
  I love induction stoves, I'm always a bit sad when people tell me they dislike induction cooking. I wish there was more granular heat control aka faster on/off switching/temperature modulation, some stoves are really bad which makes frying especially complicated as the heat comes in pulses of seconds. Btw. for my new apartment I was wondering if there are ways to avoid scratches on the induction glass plate and turns out there are protective silicone mats, which also help against slipping. Anyone tried those yet? Random Amazon link of what I mean: https://www.amazon.com/Induction-Cooktop-Mat-Fiberglass-Protector/dp/B07MDT34BV https://www.amazon.com/Induction-Cooktop-Mat-Fiberglass-Prot...
  • whycome 5y ago
    I'd be too scared to use it if its only good up to 480f -- I don't want to have to think.
    • miduil 5y ago
      Isn't that much higher than smoke point of most vegetable oils? Also Teflon pans shouldn't be heated much higher. But you're right of course. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cooking_oils https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cookin...
• rasengan0 5y ago
  Duxtop induction cooker + Fagor Pressure cooker = life changing
  • smiley1437 5y ago
    I stumbled across that magic combo too! Electronic temperature control using induction plus the quick-cool benefit of a stovetop pressure cooker. I love that a hot cooker at full pressure can be moved to the sink and cooled with tap water so it can be safely opened in less than a minute. Can't really do that with an instapot, gotta wait.
• smiley1437 5y ago
  I like induction but it's hard to find portable induction with a true hob size larger than 6". Any cookware outside the induction disk zone only gets warm, not really hot. The largest one I could find is the Max Burton 6600 which claims a 9" induction disk but the middle 3 inches of the disk is not energized. I suppose for a 15 amp plug there's only so much area it can safely heat. Maybe built-in ones can be bigger?
  • londons_explore 5y ago
    If you disassemble one, you can quite easily change the shape and size of the heating area. It's all flexible wire that you can re-route as you please.
• em-bee 5y ago
  related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30275953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30275953
• moistly 5y ago
  Have a Samsung induction. Induction kicks ass: incredibly fast to heat up, incredibly fast to reduce heat, good temperature control, dead easy to clean, surfaces stay relatively cool, etc. Flat(ish)-bottom wok works well. I highly recommend upgrading to induction stovetops. Had a cast-iron pan on “hi” or “powerboost”. It heated up so fast it cracked. It was like a gunshot, scared the bejeezsus outta me. Surprisingly, it did not shatter the oven top. Advice: don’t buy Samsung. Their products are always garbage. The stove’s convection no longer works. The dishwasher doesn’t clean well and plastic bits have disintegrated. The fridge has an icing-up problem. Every Samsung product is shit. Spend the extra dosh, get something from a better manufacturer.
  • ggm 5y ago
    You both love your Samsung induction and hate Samsung. So.. which wins?
    • moistly 5y ago
      Induction wins. Just choose better than I did.
  • bliteben 5y ago
    Our GE Cafe Induction Oven https://www.cafeappliances.com/appliance/Cafe-30-Smart-Slide-In-Front-Control-Induction-and-Convection-Range-with-Warming-Drawer-CHS900P2MS1 https://www.cafeappliances.com/appliance/Cafe-30-Smart-Slide... had board failure in the first 6 months, the first board appeared to have a cooling shroud installed improperly (covid quality issues?), so we were hopeful, 3 months later the replacement failed. We are now awaiting our Gas replacement stove.
  • pteraspidomorph 5y ago
    I've had a Samsung fridge for years and it works really well. Don't know about anything else though. Here in the EU I tend to prefer Electrolux/Frigidaire and Bosch.
• naiwenwt 5y ago
  The problem with induction stovetops in my experience is that they really don't play nicely with Asian (particularly Chinese) cooking. Trying to stir-fry on one is maddening. Usually any discussion about induction stoves seems to wholly revolve around European-centric cuisines, which is why I'm surprised to see this article quote a positive experience from a self-described "Kind of Chinese" restaurant. I genuinely wonder how they manage it and what I'm missing.
  • dirtyid 5y ago
    Induction wok burners with concave cooking surface are pretty common for home/commercial use.
• aaron695 5y ago
• code_biologist 5y ago
  Does anyone know of an induction hob with adjustability that doesn’t suck? My current one has 200-300 watt jumps between power output settings and it seems stupid that I can’t adjust in 5 or 10 watt increments instead!
  • amluto 5y ago
    Breville Control Freak. Also, although it’s current vaporware, the Njori.
    • code_biologist 5y ago
      Hah, I've seen the Control Freak and it looks cool. At $1,450 it's uh, a little out of my budget.
  • Gibbon1 5y ago
    There is some dividing line between crappy ones that pulse on and off. And the better ones with fine PWM control. I don't know where that is and the product literature is unhelpful. I suspect it's in the $250 range. All I can say is I tried a $60 unit, a $75 unit and a $120 unit and they suck. All of them pulse on and off at lower power settings.
    • code_biologist 5y ago
      For those interested in such things, I found this interesting thread [1] with lots of brand names to look into, although no easy answers. Looking at Vollrath's line, their 59300 Mirage Cadet hob at $350 has only 20 power settings, and the 59500P Mirage Pro at $680 has 100 levels (but with not-great reviews...). [1] https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5590893/induction-cooktops-how-fine-is-the-control-lots-of-levels https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5590893/induction-cooktops...
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > But induction stoves are expensive. Starting around $1,000, they’re twice the price of a basic gas range. When I was in college, I wanted to be able to make pasta in my dorm room. The dining hall was fine, but it was my first time away from home, and I missed cooking pasta. The rules said that hotplates weren't allowed in dorms, so I bought a portable induction cooker for $60 off Amazon. It can't be a hotplate if it doesn't get hot! (And I didn't exactly ask permission.) For $60, it was great. It was small and light and plugged into a normal outlet, but could boil water in about the same time as a normal stove. If my apartment didn't already come with a gas stove, I could easily forego a standard range in favor of a couple of these portable cookers. I've never used a "real" induction range, but $1,000 seems awfully expensive compared to $60 per burner...
  • kleinsch 5y ago
    A comparable gas burner would be $15-20 but nobody would let you use it indoors, so there’s no market for it. Look on Home Depot or Lowes website. Full cooktop w oven is a totally separate market than gluing four hot plates together. Induction has been a high-end thing for a long time, so there aren’t bargain basement induction ranges. Stuff for sale in the US is competing with mid to high end gas.
• twobitshifter 5y ago
  I’m working on a renovation but will be sticking with gas. EMFs from induction cooking exceed the legal limit and we like to cook on high heat. If you are not fully covering the induction burner, using a silicone handle, and standing at least a foot away you can be getting an unhealthy dose of emf. It’s non ionizing but it’s so intense that I am personally concerned. https://kitcheninduction.net/induction-cooking-safe/ https://kitcheninduction.net/induction-cooking-safe/
  • bliteben 5y ago
    Also the noise, and reliability to look at, the one I have and am now getting rid of had a motherboard larger than an e-atx board inside of it. I have no clue why it needs that much circuitry, it does have wifi, but really seems insane. For me I was sold on the speed and my wife honestly liked the fact that it never burned on food, she also liked the safety aspect of the stovetop never being hot, but none of those really matter if the replacement motherboard dies after 3 months on a $4000 range.
• ouid 5y ago
  I don't buy it, sorry. Electric ovens are garbage, and there's no such thing as an induction oven. Most of the health concerns are probably solved by requiring the installation of range hoods. I don't believe the claims about burning natural gas being the causal factor here either. I rather think that culprit is aerosolized oil, and houses with gas ranges are simply more likely to cook with oil at temperatures hot enough to aerosolize it. I think this conclusion is reasonable at least because people who like cooking also are more likely to be more comfortable with cooking at higher temperature, and also are more likely to prioritize cooking with gas when considering homes. The most salient argument against gas is not that it's worse than induction. In fact, I think it's pretty obvious that they are complimentary, and that gas is more universal. Instead, it is that piping natural gas to houses requires maintaining enormous amounts of infrastructure. I will happily purchase a stove that contains some induction and some gas, and even prioritize the induction whenever I can. But the argument that induction is "better" is made by people who do not spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Induction cooking has existed for a long time. Restaurants have largely not made the switch for a reason.
  • onli 5y ago
    The article explains pretty well the advantages of induction. I had induction in my last appartment, gas before and currently a glass-ceramic cooktop (without induction). Induction was clearly the best. Very fast to make water boil, no issues with the gas sometimes not starting to burn or other maintenance work the gas needed. And I see no reason to doubt the negative health effects of gas, burning stuff is always bad. Being able to select a target temperature would be awesome for cooking, my induction stove couldn't do that. > Electric ovens are garbage What, why? All ovens I have ever seen outside of pizza places are electric. Why should a thing that just needs to get hot at the sides be bad if it gets hot by electricity? That's nonsensical. > In fact, I think it's pretty obvious that they are complimentary, and that gas is more universal. Not a fact at all. As I see it, there is simply no positive of gas compared to induction, not a single one. Thus there is nothing complementary about it. You are just used to it - or seen broader, it's simply one more technological area where the US seems to be stuck in the past.
    • 5y ago
• js2 5y ago
  Top reader comment seems apt w/r/t the pollution aspect anyway: As a scientist (an immunologist) who leads a research lab on lung inflammation including asthma, the cavalier attitude Times columnists have toward scientific references in their articles is appalling. RMI is a thinktank with an agenda. Not a research institution. And Brady Seals is not a scientist. Note the lack of PhD. She has an MBA and has never worked in science. Nor did she 'author a study'. She authored a REPORT. Which is not peer-reviewed and not published in a reputable journal. As an immunologist I assure you that scientific evidence does not indicate that 'increase of asthma is on par with living in a home with a smoker'. And frankly- just walking outdoors in NYC you're exposed to far higher levels of lung-irritating pollutants than you are cooking stir fry on your stove. But that doesn't fit the agenda the Times is pushing with multiple induction stove articles lately all focused on bogus health effects and the (more legitimate) climate concerns. https://nyti.ms/3i1tj3B#permid=117337268 https://nyti.ms/3i1tj3B#permid=117337268
  • cperciva 5y ago
    not a scientist. Note the lack of PhD. The lack of a PhD doesn't make someone "not a scientist". Science is what one does, not what one is. I have a doctorate from Oxford, but I'm less of a scientist now than I was as an undergraduate student.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • ekianjo 5y ago
      > Science is what one does, not what one is. yes but someone who has a MBA is definitely NOT a scientist but a salesman.
      • th3iedkid 5y ago
        Wouldn’t it make sense to ask them for citations than use their last/latest educational qualifications? Isn’t it possible, a sales person is aware of something better than someone having an educational degree over it, esp when selling?
• amluto 5y ago
  This article is, in one respect, quite misleading. It compares gas ranges to a specific induction hob: the Breville Control Freak. This device is not actually complicated per se, but it is a masterpiece of good (or at least decent) UX and control design in a way that makes it almost incomparable to anything else on the market. Cooking with it is a rather different experience than using any normal stove. There’s actually a large learning curve. With a normal stove of any sort, you set a power level. Different stoves have different degrees of responsiveness, differing levels of UI annoyance (knobs at one end; phone apps at the other), and different abilities to work well at low power, but they do fundamentally the same thing. The Control Freak knob does not control power; it controls _tempererature_. To boil pasta, you set it to 240 (F) or so. To carmelize onions, something like 330 will do it, and the onions won’t burn. Want to keep your stew warm? Set it to 160 and ignore it. If you put someone who hasn’t used one before in front of one, they get rather confused until they get the hang of it. If you out someone used to it in front of a normal stove, they’re disappointed.
  • kelvie 5y ago
    Yeah, we splurged on a Control Freak 3 years ago; it was on sale because they were phasing out the ones with the NEMA 5-20 plugs, honestly it's better if you have the 20A hookup. The idea we had was that we'd use it for Cantonese hot pot, and just put it away in its case for storage the rest of the time. We were dead wrong. It takes up a lot of counter space in our apartment kitchen, but since we unboxed it it has never moved from the counter for the last 3 years. It has replaced our hob for 80% of cooking (in general, we only use the hob when we need to cook two things at once), and when it's not in use for other things, we leave a kettle on top of it. It's also industrially specced so we can actually leave it on forever -- when we have a stew we want to eat tomorrow, sometimes we just leave it at 65°C until we want to eat it the next day. It's so amazing I wish it came in a 4 hob configuration and we can replace our stovetops completely (GE has something similar, but we've had terrible experiences with GE appliances).
• Sqwandery 5y ago
  Upgrading all the preexisting stoves is certainly worse for the environment. And using electricity to generate heat is less efficient.
• m3kw9 5y ago
  Why does almost all professional kitchens use gas to cook?
  • ip26 5y ago
    Perhaps because they mostly use $20 aluminum pots & pans that get heavily dented & don't stay flat.
• yout2 5y ago
  I have one but find it frustrating to use. The hob is big enough to fit a large pan but only heats a 10cm circle in the middle. (And I have tried it with many induction-safe pots and pans.) Rather than physical buttons, it has touch sensors that react to moisture. So a few drops of water spilling out of the pot cause it to turn off or stop working.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• oxplot 5y ago
  The archive.ph / archive.is links never load for me. I just learned that it's blocked in Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today#Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today#Australia Interestingly, only my landline broadband connection blocks them (Aussie Broadband), not my mobile provider (Telstra, Optus)! EDIT: contacted Aussie since it looks like they've forgotten to unblock it. EDIT: Not related to blocking - turns out archive.today returns invalid IP when queries by Cloudflare DNS resolvers (which I use): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDNS_Client_Subnet#Controversy_over_lack_of_support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDNS_Client_Subnet#Controversy...
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • Qub3d 5y ago
    Out of curiosity, do you use Cloudflare DNS? Cloudflare doesn't support EDNS IP location (ostensibly for privacy), which Archive.today uses for geolocation-based multicast resolution. Archive.today's maintainer decided they didn't want to deal with it, so they intentionally return incorrect DNS results to Cloudflare IPs. Cloudflare's CEO has stated they could just detect and override it, but that would be essentially MITMing DNS, which felt like an overreach: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
• TedShiller 5y ago
  brought to you by Woke Inc!
• elhudy 5y ago
  > “For children who live in a home with a gas stove, the increased risk of asthma is on par with living in a home with a smoker,” she said. We’re never going to get anywhere in the case against global warming with BS statements like this…
• colechristensen 5y ago
  I have a pretty strong doubt that the emissions from gas + cooking are significantly worse than the fine particulate put off from cooking methods like pan frying or burning anything even slightly. There is also probably a statistics abuse here with the "emissions while not in use" is more likely large rare leakage incidents rather than median kinds of events. Keeping in mind that the amount of methane lost to the atmosphere from petroleum production is absolutely enormous, undercounted, and would certainly dwarf any gas leaks from your kitchen. But this is the kind of "bad for you" thing which appeals to many people that want to do good and are easily sold ideas by others who don't know what they're really talking about but are good at getting attention.
  • kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
    “Pretty strong doubt” “Probably” “Don’t know what they’re really talking about” Do you have evidence for these counter claims?
    • colechristensen 5y ago
      I could, it would be a lot of work. There's plenty of evidence out there that fine particulate has a significant impact on long term health. You can easily measure the impacts of cooking by buying a particle counter and making some stirfry or burning some cookies in the oven. I have, it's easy to measure PM2.5 air quality in your apartment worse than the worse city in the world after a bit of pan frying which if you don't actively do quite a bit will linger for hours. You'd have to come up with a model of nitrogen oxides produced by gas stoves and their long term health effects and compare them to fine particles in poorly ventilated / filtered air in homes.
• AussieWog93 5y ago
  All of these cases for or against are irrelevant. I will continue to cook with gas, long after mains gas is switched off, because I like cooking with gas. Just like car enthusiasts would rather drive a 1960s Mustang than a safer, more efficient 2020s Camry or N64 fans would rather play with original hardware on a CRT than an emulator with 60fps, 4k native rendering on a 90" OLED.
• tristor 5y ago
  I switched from induction to gas after a kitchen renovation. My experience is that induction is more efficient and powerful than gas, but is also much more uneven, more picky about cookware, and does not work well with “professional” cooking techniques which were created around gas and wood stoves. I gave induction a solid trial run and in the end, it didn’t cut it. The stupid controls design made it even worse. Also, gas is not dangerous from fumes at all if you have an externally vented hood, which you should have with ANY cooktop, as cooking fumes are worse for health than the byproducts of a blue flame. Whoever wrote this article doesn’t know what they’re talking about and clearly doesn’t gourmet cook regularly.
  • SECProto 5y ago
    > My experience is that induction is more efficient and powerful than gas, but is also much more uneven, more picky about cookware, and does not work well with “professional” cooking techniques which were created around gas and wood stoves Anyone else's may vary, but my experience differed from this: 1 I found induction to produce a very even heat - much more even than a gas stove, where there's a heat spike wherever any individual gas jet hits. Quite noticeable with cast iron on a gas stove. 2. Yes, certainly induction needs specific kinds of cookware. All mine work fine. 3 What "professional" cooking techniques don't work? 4 Agree on controls, but that goes for most modern consumer devices, unfortunately... 5 Saying the author "clearly doesn't gourmet cook regularly" is very elitist and a non-constructive criticism. I wonder if perhaps your induction was a bad model? Or are you confident it wasn't a halogen stove?
    • ihateolives 5y ago
      > I wonder if perhaps your induction was a bad model? That's a real concern, there are some subpar induction tops out there that give induction bad rep.
    • tristor 5y ago
      I used induction in EU while traveling and found it really great which us why I switched to it initially when back in the US. The available models (at any price) in the US are all subpar. Commonly you will have a single 7” diameter induction ring in a 10” burner, which is /horribly/ uneven compared to any other range type. Look in cooking forums, it’s well understood at this point that radiant is the most even, induction is the least even, and gas is in the middle. But gas has the advantage of working with any cookware (including warped or wobbly/spun pans) and can be used in tilted/lifted cooking techniques that don’t work on induction or radiant and are common in gourmet cooking done in the French tradition. I really wanted induction to work for me. It’s so much safer and more energy efficient (e.g. cheaper) than other options, but it just sucked in the US. Even EU brands sold in US use subpar designs and the quality cooktops sold in EU are not available here. If you want to know conclusively how even your cooktop is do a flour scorch test or use a thermal imaging device. I know from scorch test that induction was significantly worse (and from behavior while cooking). Try using cast iron on induction and you’ll hate life.
• cronix 5y ago
  > Happily, there is induction, which uses electromagnets to efficiently heat cookware without the inherent pollution of fossil fuels like natural gas. Yet about half of the electricity in NY is generated with natural gas[1], so most of the "benefits" this article touts, especially pollution, don't really exist. The other half comes from nuclear/hydro combined and renewables accounting for a tad. Same for electric car owners who think they're helping the environment. Nope, you just shifted the problem to where you don't directly see it but they contribute just as much. Probably more with the all of the inefficiencies added up from each steps of going from natural gas->steam->turbine->transmission lines->multiple transformers->charging car battery. [1] https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NY#tabs-4 https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NY#tabs-4
  • occz 5y ago
    >Yet about half of the electricity in NY is generated with natural gas[1), so most of the "benefits" this article touts, especially pollution, don't really exist. You're right in that from a strict energy perspective, burning gas to cook food is more efficient than converting energy to electricity and then utilizing it to cook food [1], but that only addresses one small part of the downsides of cooking with gas. Among other things, these are the things that come to mind right away: - Induction has the potential to be emissionless, gas can never achieve that. At its best, gas can be carbon-neutral if it is not fossil-sourced. - Induction has zero local emissions, while gas is not great for indoor air quality. - Induction can't leak lethal gasses into the home where it exists - Induction is much less likely to cause an indoor fire and burn down the home where it's installed >Same for electric car owners who think they're helping the environment. Nope, you just shifted the problem to where you don't directly see it but they contribute just as much. Probably more with the all of the inefficiencies added up from each steps of going from natural gas+steam+turbine→transmission lines-+multiple transformerscharging car battery. The concern of direct energy efficiency is still the same as for induction vs gas, but to imply that it would be worse for the environment is abject nonsense. EVs perform better from an environmental perspective in all but the worst grids in the world (basically 100% coal power), and only get better as grids become carbon-free, while ICEs remain awful. I'll agree that EVs are not the solution to our transportation-energy concerns, though. The solution is bicycles and trains, and transitioning away entirely from the car, which in all its forms is terrible from an energy-efficiency perspective. [1] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-cooking-stoves.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-c...
• jopsen 5y ago
  The best argument for induction cooking is how easy cleaning it. The fact that they don't pollute your home as much, and that installation is cheaper are just extra cherries on top. If you spill something, on an induction stove you just wipe it with a cloth. It doesn't even burn onto the stove. What more arguments do you need?
• zahma 5y ago
  Installed an induction cooktop from Smeg a couple years ago. It’s not top of the line but it offers granular enough control. I was a doubter at first but it was the right thing to do to avoid using gas and to electrify more appliances in our home. I quite like it. I don’t miss gas. I’m not a chef but I do a fair amount of cooking and even an entry-level cooktop will serve most well. Best part for me is easy on and easy off. The surface heats up very quickly and cools down fast enough that I can reuse the cooktop as part of the counter. A major bonus for tight kitchen spaces.
• martingoodson 5y ago
  I absolutely hate my induction jobs. Touch interface does not work unless your fingers are completely clean and dry. Therefore it does not respond to touch while I’m cooking. It turns itself off and I cannot turn it back on again. This happens on a daily basis. Worst product I own.
• perlgeek 5y ago
  The case against induction cooking: Somebody in my family has a cardic pacemaker. Edit to add: I'm not pro gas cooking, just cannot use induction cooking. It's just not an option accessible to everyone.
• joshuajill 5y ago
  The major con of induction though is the very poor energy efficiency: 15% That's on par with a typical open fire. https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-cooking-stoves.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-c...
  • ulnarkressty 5y ago
    It's not that they are inefficient per se, rather they are taking the power generation losses into account, which will always be >0 when compared to directly burning fuel.
  • goodpoint 5y ago
    Not at all. Induction is extremely efficient and that comparison is incorrect.
    • joshuajill 5y ago
      The comparison is not incorrect, it takes into account externalities, which if you are environmentally minded is the right thing to do.
  • ThePhysicist 5y ago
    That figures includes all losses from the entire power generation chain, it's hard to take seriously. The heat transfer energy efficiency of an induction stove is about 80-90 %, which is much better than for let's say an electric oven or even a gas stove. Also, electricity for induction can be generated from renewable sources, unlike for gas or open fire cooking.
    • joshuajill 5y ago
      The large majority of people use the grid, so it's very relevant IMO. But yes, if you somehow have your own source of energy to power a 2kW it's excellent.
  • m45t3r 5y ago
    I did a quick read in the article and while it gets in conclusion that induction has only 15% efficiency compared to a typical open fire, it is considering also the conversion of heat in energy by a thermoelectric (that is the actual inefficient process). While I understand the point of the article this is not a valid general conclusion of the efficiency of induction cookers, since you can have much more efficient ways of producing energy. Induction cooks by themselves are very efficient in converting energy to heat (90% efficiency, according another claim in the article).
• KineticLensman 5y ago
  One problem with induction cooking is that the magnetic fields can prevent the correct operation of certain implanted medical devices such as Implanted Cardioverter Defibrillators and pacemakers. I had an induction hob unit fitted in my kitchen ten years ago (replacing gas) and loved it for the instant controllability (although not the controls themselves, as covered elsewhere here). But last year I had an ICD implanted after an episode of cardiac fibrillation, and was advised by the NHS arrhythmia nurses not to use the hob (or at least to keep an arms length away from active hobs). So because I love cooking I had it replaced with a ceramic unit, which is much less satisfactory. It's made by the same company (NEF) that made the old induction hob and in fact has identical controls and physical footprint. But it's less responsive than induction (or gas) because of the residual heat and harder to clean than induction because the surface gets scorchingly hot which can burn spills on. So having used gas, induction and ceramic, I'd definitely pick induction as my favourite, except for the one small problem that can stop my ICD sensing imminent sudden cardiac death or (unlikely) reset my ICD which would trigger an annoying warning buzzer inside my chest (but that's a whole different topic)
• daneel_w 5y ago
  I prefer a ceramic stove top as they're not finicky about the metal of the cookware. The one in my kitchen gets glowing hot in an instant and transfers heat so fast that it's almost like an induction stove.
• pinetlk 5y ago
  I have an induction stove. It works (fine-grained temperature, fast heating, easy cleaning, no heat in kitchen) but I find stove cooking in general to be unsatisfying. It just seems like a very tricky way to cook food. For starters, you have to use some kind of oil, and most oil is not even good for you when heated at high temperatures. I would much prefer to cook everything on a bbq or some kind of oven method. That bbq taste is so obvious and special, and oven cooking is so easy.
• unsigner 5y ago
  In a world where Putin's bombs fall nearby, and millions of Ukrainians are without electricity, the (propane-tank fueled) gas stove is another small step towards resiliance in the face of crisis.
• giantg2 5y ago
  I wonder how canning works, especially since most pressure canners are aluminum, most induction stove tops are glass (weight limits), and bands/lids on 4oz jars are less than 4" above the stove (do they heat?).
• Angostura 5y ago
  I work with a housing organisation. We don't install induction hobs due to the potential for unfortunate interaction with pacemakers. Worth being aware. https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/medical/ask-the-experts/induction-hobs-and-pacemakers https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-maga...
• blindmute 5y ago
  Maybe if the article says "lizard brain" and "noxious fumes" enough times, the propaganda will sink in to those pesky gas users.
• losalamosal 5y ago
  As others have mentioned, you really can’t shake and shuttle the pan along the surface of the cooktop—it’ll scratch. That ruins the neat & clean look if that’s important to you. You’ll need to adapt to that. Some use silicon pads (shown in one image in the article) to prevent inadvertent scratching. I don’t trust those—they can melt at 400+F and you’ll never get that off the stove. I use LoMi cloth (Nomex-like?). They’re not going to melt. To me, the limits of induction (no lifting, shuttling, shifting) are worth it for precise temperature control, less ambient heat (huge exhaust blower not needed), and the neat and clean look. My wife disliked the “patina” on our gas range. Not a problem any more. https://thecooktopmat.com/ https://thecooktopmat.com/
• coward123 5y ago
  Look I'm as environmentally conscious as the next guy, but here's the thing I don't quite get about induction - how am I supposed to use a wok, a tagine, or basically anything that is either a non-metallic pan or where you need a flame for the cooking technique? Every time I've talked to induction owners, their answer has been that there are many cuisines they simply don't cook and types of cooking vessels that they don't use.
• grvdrm 5y ago
  Ok, so, perhaps a silly question (forget about environmental advantage/disadvantage): is gas a problem if I turn on a very strong exhaust fan right above my stove?