6 ms·

right now, there are thermal properties around materials like copper which will not work with induction that mean there are things that simply can't be done wit

right now, there are thermal properties around materials like copper which will not work with induction that mean there are things that simply can't be done with them, and resistive electric is horribly non-responsive. As it happens, the latest installment of Technology Connections [1] does direct comparisons of the time required to boil a volume of water on various cooktop technologies. The winner was a cheap electric kettle, followed closely by an electric cooktop. A gas stove fared far worse. This surprised me, but there's the evidence. In retrospect, the efficiency of the gas stove is significantly impaired because it's not able to transfer as much of its energy into the pot - much of it escapes around the sides. To be fair, that's not quite the same thing as what you're saying: in car terms I'm comparing 0-60 acceleration times while you're comparing handling. But if I can stretch an analogy, a significant power advantage can cover a lot of sins in handling, see the famed Shelby Cobra for example. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c

eric-hu 4y ago
I think you’re off in your analogy. Parent comment is closer to the 0-60 time because of the responsiveness, and you’re referring to time to move a 1000 lbs mass to 60. When I see “responsive” in terms of cooking and gas, I think of wok cooking (mentioned in the article too) where 100k BTUs are needed for a few seconds at a time to combust atomized oil droplets flipped over the edge of the wok. Combusting that oil properly leaves behind the a small amount of highly flavorful residue that sets apart the best bbq and wok fired dishes. You can’t get this with a stove that only heats the cooking vessel, even if it has the ability to boil water faster than the same gas stove.
- brewdad 4y ago
  Is it even legal to install 100k BTU burner in a residential application? I have a reasonably nice cooktop and the total BTUs of all burners is significantly less than 100k.
  - cthalupa 4y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if there are places where it is, but I can't find any limit in my local ordinances. For consumers, you're just not going to get a 100k burner in general - I can find a few prosumer ranges that get up to 35k or so on a single burner, but nothing remotely close to what you would see in a professional Chinese kitchen. For stir-frying I have a 270k BTU propane burner I use outside. I wouldn't want to dump that much heat into the inside of my house in general, unless it was winter I guess.
  - eric-hu 4y ago
    This thread is on an article about how removing gas stoves affects Chinese and Korean restaurants.
kelnos 4y ago
> To be fair, that's not quite the same thing as what you're saying That's an asterisk you can drive a truck through. "Not quite"? What you're saying has absolutely nothing to do with what the parent is saying.
jacquesm 4y ago
Boiling water is only a very, very small subset of what a typical person will do when cooking.
- cecilpl2 4y ago
  Boiling water is a proxy for rate at which energy can be delivered to food. Heating a pan up to temp is much faster on induction than gas.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Sure, but it's not just about energy transfer, it is also about temperature stability, ability to ramp up and down in a short time, ability to deliver that heat gradually. You can't compare an immersion coil with an induction plate or a gas stove directly by only looking at the energy transfer efficiency. There is much more to it than that.
    - brewdad 4y ago
      I'm still not seeing the problem. Remove pan from the immersion coil and heat delivery ceases immediately. Adjusting the rate of heat delivery also happens quickly. There may be some cases where you have to alter technique a bit from what you are used to but, aside from wok cooking, I can't think of anything that you can cook over gas that you can't cook on an induction top.
      - bcbrown 4y ago
        You can't use copper or aluminum pans on induction stoves, so you're not going to be able to have a pan that has both high thermal conductivity and low thermal heat capacity. This is important for cooking things that need to go quickly from high temperature to off, for example hollandaise/bearnaise, caramel, roux. Even deglazing a pan to make a sauce benefits from being able to quickly stop heat transfer before whisking in the finishing butter for an emulsion. You can take your steel-clad pan off the induction coil, but there's still a lot of heat capacity in the pan that will continue transferring to the food. I mean, I think you're mostly right, in that I wouldn't have to make that many sacrifices in switching from a gas stove to an induction stove, other than having to replace the majority of my pots and pans and learning some new techniques. But there's certainly a non-trivial amount of recipes and techniques that rely on the characteristics of a high-conductivity low-capacity pan over a gas stove.
mint2 4y ago
Gas stove pans should really be more like jet boil pots with fins

eric-hu 4y ago

I think you’re off in your analogy. Parent comment is closer to the 0-60 time because of the responsiveness, and you’re referring to time to move a 1000 lbs mass to 60. When I see “responsive” in terms of cooking and gas, I think of wok cooking (mentioned in the article too) where 100k BTUs are needed for a few seconds at a time to combust atomized oil droplets flipped over the edge of the wok. Combusting that oil properly leaves behind the a small amount of highly flavorful residue that sets apart the best bbq and wok fired dishes. You can’t get this with a stove that only heats the cooking vessel, even if it has the ability to boil water faster than the same gas stove.

brewdad 4y ago
Is it even legal to install 100k BTU burner in a residential application? I have a reasonably nice cooktop and the total BTUs of all burners is significantly less than 100k.
- cthalupa 4y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if there are places where it is, but I can't find any limit in my local ordinances. For consumers, you're just not going to get a 100k burner in general - I can find a few prosumer ranges that get up to 35k or so on a single burner, but nothing remotely close to what you would see in a professional Chinese kitchen. For stir-frying I have a 270k BTU propane burner I use outside. I wouldn't want to dump that much heat into the inside of my house in general, unless it was winter I guess.
- eric-hu 4y ago
  This thread is on an article about how removing gas stoves affects Chinese and Korean restaurants.

kelnos 4y ago

> To be fair, that's not quite the same thing as what you're saying That's an asterisk you can drive a truck through. "Not quite"? What you're saying has absolutely nothing to do with what the parent is saying.

jacquesm 4y ago

Boiling water is only a very, very small subset of what a typical person will do when cooking.

cecilpl2 4y ago
Boiling water is a proxy for rate at which energy can be delivered to food. Heating a pan up to temp is much faster on induction than gas.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Sure, but it's not just about energy transfer, it is also about temperature stability, ability to ramp up and down in a short time, ability to deliver that heat gradually. You can't compare an immersion coil with an induction plate or a gas stove directly by only looking at the energy transfer efficiency. There is much more to it than that.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    I'm still not seeing the problem. Remove pan from the immersion coil and heat delivery ceases immediately. Adjusting the rate of heat delivery also happens quickly. There may be some cases where you have to alter technique a bit from what you are used to but, aside from wok cooking, I can't think of anything that you can cook over gas that you can't cook on an induction top.
    - bcbrown 4y ago
      You can't use copper or aluminum pans on induction stoves, so you're not going to be able to have a pan that has both high thermal conductivity and low thermal heat capacity. This is important for cooking things that need to go quickly from high temperature to off, for example hollandaise/bearnaise, caramel, roux. Even deglazing a pan to make a sauce benefits from being able to quickly stop heat transfer before whisking in the finishing butter for an emulsion. You can take your steel-clad pan off the induction coil, but there's still a lot of heat capacity in the pan that will continue transferring to the food. I mean, I think you're mostly right, in that I wouldn't have to make that many sacrifices in switching from a gas stove to an induction stove, other than having to replace the majority of my pots and pans and learning some new techniques. But there's certainly a non-trivial amount of recipes and techniques that rely on the characteristics of a high-conductivity low-capacity pan over a gas stove.

mint2 4y ago

Gas stove pans should really be more like jet boil pots with fins