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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 choc
by 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 agoI 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 agowok 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 agoIn 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 agoyou find a flat induction stove better than a gas one with wok ring for wok cooking?
- radicalbyte 5y agoYup - induction heats up quicker, although you have to use a heavy iron wok which sits still. It probably says more about how bad the consumer wok rings are though. If you have a commercial one you'd never switch from gas.
- chii 5y ago> although you have to use a heavy iron wok which sits still. but you need a flat bottom for such a "wok" to sit - otherwise a round bottom wok isn't close enough to heat up evenly.
- trmsw 5y agoI found those burners too weak for stir-frying. I suspect that unless you have special ventilation, a burner that's hot enough for wok cooking will not be safe for indoor use. Ours is used outside because that's where the gas bottle has to be kept and because apparently it generates too much carbon monoxide to be safely used inside. And because we have three small children and this thing burns with a foot-high flame like a jet afterburner. It's great fun
- goodpoint 5y agoInduction is excellent for wok. Blame your induction heater or induction wok.
- eyeball 5y agoI suppose if you have one of those round made-for-wok induction hobs. the flat ones just don't heat the sides of a wok and you can't even use a round bottom work. far from "excellent".
- Kon-Peki 5y agoLodge makes a flat-bottom cast iron wok (the interior cooking surface is completely rounded, however). It's too heavy for my kitchen scale, but according to my bathroom scale it is between 11 and 12 pounds. You'll need two hands to move it around :) https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Pro-Logic-Handles-14-inch-Black/dp/B00063RXQK https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Pro-Logic-Handles-14-inch-Black...
- bch 5y agoDo you wrangle the wok on the surface (or a frying pan) for a sauté[0]? What I'm really trying to find out is: how durable is the work surface? Does it deal well with pans being slid over it, and on/off it? [0] https://youtu.be/CTyV3JExDT8 https://youtu.be/CTyV3JExDT8
- angry_octet 5y agoYes, never had a scratch.
- noveltyaccount 5y agoI have microscratches on the ceramic surface but nothing horrible. The instructions said explicitly to lift pots and not drag them. I don't baby it and it's fine.
- BaseballPhysics 5y agoAnd if you're worried about it just buy a silicone cooktop mat to put between the ceramic and the pan, something you can't do on any other cooking surface.
- namibj 5y agoWhen frying potato pancakes, we went outside, took a countertop induction plate, and covered the area in old newspapers. I.e., cover the plate/table in newspapers, put the pan on top. I can only recommend such tactics for messy cooking; it's indeed the real "killer" feature of induction that even gas can't match.
- clumsysmurf 5y agoCan you share which flat bottom wok you got? I'm mostly going to use one to prepare frozen broccoli in olive oil when I can't get fresh broccoli.
- noveltyaccount 5y agoIt was on sale at my local grocery store, no idea the name. It is lightweight carbon steel, means it gets hot in a flash and is easy to move around with one hand. I probably paid thirty bucks for it, nothing special. Edit: pretty sure this is the wok, definitely the correct brand. https://kenhomwoks.com/store/products/ken-hom-excellence-carbon-steel-uncoated-wok-14in-kh436003u.htm https://kenhomwoks.com/store/products/ken-hom-excellence-car...
- Aaargh20318 5y ago> I got a flat bottom wok There is no such thing. A round bottom is a defining feature of a wok. If it doesn’t have a round bottom it isn’t a wok by definition. A round bottom is essential to how a wok is used.
- noveltyaccount 5y agoLol this is an unusual hill to die on
- Aaargh20318 5y agoNot sure what you’re trying to say. A wok is a very specific type of cookware for specific uses cases. The round bottom is the entire point of a wok. A flat bottom wok is like a square wheel.
- elil17 5y agoCannot imagine why op wrote “flat bottomed wok” instead of “A pan similar in shape to a wok, but with a flat bottom, so that it can be used on induction cooktops but still allows for the tossing motion that cooks use to mix ingredients in a wok”
- Aaargh20318 5y agoEasy tossing for stir fry is just one feature of a wok. For example, the round bottom causes liquids to pool in the center. I’m not saying that large flat bottom frying pans with high edges aren’t useful, I have one and it’s probably my most used pan, it’s just not a complete replacement for a wok.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wtallis 5y agoYou're being argumentative instead of clarifying what you're trying to say. If you've read the other comments in this thread, then you can see there are things being sold as woks that have a flat bottom on the outside but still have a curved surface on the inside. Do these also offend your notion of what may be referred to as a wok?
- cespare 5y agoIt's true that most induction cooktops/ranges aren't great for woks, but in principle the induction surface doesn't have to be flat -- it can be a concave shape to match the wok. In fact these exist -- if you search for "induction wok burners" you can see some pictures. (I only recently became aware of this after watching this video of a chef who uses induction cooking in a small kitchen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooNzRrHA9VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooNzRrHA9VY) Perhaps in the future there will be cooktops that include a wok depression on the surface, similar to how some gas stoves today include a built-in wok ring.
- ghostpepper 5y agoIsn't the reason why woks need gas also that the gas creates a smooth heat gradient up the sides of the wok? How far away from the surface of the stove can an induction element heat a pan?
- rsfern 5y agoIt sounds like the induction element cradles the wok. I don’t know about the thermal gradient thing (seems plausible) but in principle you could make a gradient in the field strength right? I would have thought that a bigger drawback would be that you can’t get even heat input while tossing the wok, though I’m not sure how essential that is
- namibj 5y agoThe coils are light enough that you could have them under spring-pressure and lubricated against the wok, so medium tossing height won't affect heat transfer. It's just a ~1mm thick planar coil out of "Litz wire", covered by a glass plate in a normal stove top. See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Induktionskochfeld_Spule.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Induktionskochfeld_S... for what's under the plate. The center silver thing is likely a thermostat/temperature sensor. The electronics may need to be a bit less ignorant to handle a flexible coil, but tracking the tank's resonance isn't even a difficult task; a Royer/Baxandall oscillator could probably be made to work.
- 5y ago
- vetinari 5y ago> but it falls apart for lower temps, and it's very hard to get it consistent. There are gas hobs that make it easy; I like my cooktop with FlameSelect exactly for this, it has 9 discrete positions and exact flame size for each position.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- henrikschroder 5y agoIt's important to understand that on a gas range or regular electric range, the knob controls power, i.e. the amount of heat you're putting into your cookware per second. And if those two are your only options, then the gas range is much better than an electric range, because you can change the amount of power very quickly, there's no lag. But with an induction range, or a ceramic glass range, the knob controls temperature, i.e. there's a thermostat somewhere that regulates the power. And this gives you a lot more control, especially at lower temperatures. But it's not unique to induction ranges, any ceramic glass range can do the same, although they have more "lag" than an induction range.
- mattmaroon 5y agoIs that true of ceramic glass ranges? I had one once and I’m fairly sure whoever made that thing couldn’t even spell thermostat let alone add one. Pretty sure the knob was just a potentiometer.
- namibj 5y agoThere are electric stoves (contact heating; cast iron plates (european style)) with a thermostat in the center, and my induction plate only has a power dial. Yeah, gas doesn't have a thermostat usually, but the other types are usually not incompatible and as such there exist both variants.
- mattmaroon 5y agoRight I’m not debating that they exist but I think most of the flat ceramic tops we have here modulate power rather than temp. That is one great thing about induction. You can reduce a sauce without risking a runaway boil if you don’t monitor it closely at the right time.
- morsch 5y agoThe knobs on my induction range control power, they go from 1 through 9 to B. Maybe US ranges are different. I was wondering why they're double the price.
- m3kw9 5y agoMain problem with induction or electric is that once you lift your pan to say toss food, the pan stars to cool. With gas you can still have some fire contact to keep the pan hot. Also you can control which part of the pan is hot if you tilt it at an angle. These are something you won’t miss till it’s gone
- timc3 5y agoI don’t miss that at all
- npsimons 5y ago> you can't really use woks on induction. I found a flat-bottomed induction compatible wok on Amazon when I got my induction cook top. I'm not a master stir fry cook, but it woks for me!
- mattmaroon 5y agoIf a flat bottom wok works for you you’re not doing wok cooking right. But if you like the results then it’s just a funny shaped pan and nothing wrong with that.