10 ms·

A large reason electric (restive and induction) are seen as inferior to gas is that portable units are limited to 120v/15a (few are 20a) so the total possible p

• presentation 4y ago
  I live in Tokyo and some yakiniku places even have charcoal table grills.
• karmicthreat 4y ago
  I miss Korean BBQ on a gas or charcoal burner. The only places I have ever managed to have it that was at Jongro in NYC or everywhere in Korea. The electric burner experience just isn't as fun.
  • joshgachnang 4y ago
    Huh, I've never used an induction one, and I've been to a bunch in Chicagoland and LA. Even at home we use a butane grill.
    • karmicthreat 4y ago
      What's a good one in Chicagoland? I get over there every once in a while.
      • isopod 4y ago
        Not OP, but San Soo Gab San (Western & Foster) was always great when I lived in Chicago.
        • Kon-Peki 4y ago
          Hey, if you’re going to make a trip out of it, when you’re done with the BBQ, head a few blocks south and take in the German bars on Lincoln Ave. There used to be a cool little Karaoke place at Lincoln and Western, too.
      • joshgachnang 4y ago
        I agree on San Soo Gab San as my fave (both the Chicago and Morton Grove locations are good). There was an awesome one in Lincoln Park that I'm pretty sure closed down that had all you can eat KBBQ _and_ all you can eat sushi.
  • russdill 4y ago
    I think you could easily reproduce the gas experience with a combination of induction and convective heating. It'd be more reliable and it would be easy to have a set temperature rather than needing the wait staff to periodically adjust the burner. It would need appropriate cost and engineering. Plus the under table apparatus would probably be much smaller. The wood charcoal experience is of course very unique.
• russdill 4y ago
  Commercial induction woks go up to ludicrous power levels. I've seen 15 and 20 kW models online.
  • jeffbee 4y ago
    Yeah but commercial gas wok cookers are also just basically broken-off gas mains with a foot pedal valve. They're probably up into the tens of kilowatts effective, too.
    • pkulak 4y ago
      But 3/4 of that heat goes around the wok.
  • madengr 4y ago
• Mikeb85 4y ago
  > Since gas stoves are so inefficient, natural gas should provide no cost benefit. In North America, the cost of gas is basically just the cost of transmission. It's so plentiful it's almost free. Agree that the move to electric has tons of benefits though.
  • rch 4y ago
    The low cost contributes to the negative externalities of production. If it was less plentiful, arguably we wouldn't have dramatic methane plumes in the southwest due to atmospheric release.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• stcredzero 4y ago
  > A large reason electric (restive and induction) are seen as inferior to gas is that portable units are limited to 120v/15a (few are 20a) so the total possible power is technically less than a gas stove; <1800w vs >2800w effective. However, gas stoves are very inefficient so in reality it's not a huge problem and 240v electric stoves could even be hotter (~4000w) than a gas stove. Could a combination of induction heating and heat pumps be developed to be hyper-efficient for cooking? Such a system would have to include the vent hood as well, and require the cooks to don insulated gloves. The idea would be to also recover heat going up the vent hood, then concentrate the heat in a stream of hot air which would hit the pans/woks again. Is this even feasible or desirable?
  • HPsquared 4y ago
    Simply switching to induction would be a big win. That and keeping the lid on while cooking.
  • hn_go_brrrrr 4y ago
    You don't need a heat pump to recover large amounts of heat from the vent - just look at an HRV. The problem is the reliability of the system. The air going up the vent is incredibly oily. The oil in the air will gum up your heat pump or your HRV core or whatever you use. At a minimum, you destroy your efficiency. More likely, you destroy your equipment.
• hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  I honestly would be interested for an actual chef to weigh in. I'm all for using an induction stovetop at home, but have people actually seen chefs fry over an open flame? They're moving the pan around, lifting it up and around, using it to toss the food, etc. That would basically be impossible with an induction stovetop. It seems rather tone deaf to me to not address the issues that the chefs are actually concerned about.
  • bergenty 4y ago
    I don’t know about chefs but my mom always complains about how hard it is to cook with induction heating because it takes very long to switch between high and low temperatures. You can’t be as reactive with induction cooking (alternatively moving the pan off the direct heat and moving it back again might achieve this)
    • mason55 4y ago
      Are you thinking of electric coil? Induction heats up super fast (way faster than gas or electric coil) because the stove itself doesn’t get warm - it transfers energy directly into the pan.
      • b112 4y ago
        It's an interface issue. Instead of a knob, it's usually a touch interface, with +/- control, and slowish.
        • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
          UI is orthogonal to the heat source.
          • PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
            Not when the UI includes (or does not include) a view of the heat source.
• ricardobeat 4y ago
  Induction burners are extremely efficient (>80%) vs something like 40% for gas burners, so the induction would come ahead in your example (1400W vs 1100W). The cooktops you can buy here in Europe are limited to 3.7kW, and you can bridge two burners for up to 7.4kW. I rarely use one burner beyond ~70% power, anything above gets scorching hot (= burns everything) when using a good iron/steel pan. I heard the US has the infrastructure to deliver 240V so that should be possible.
  • 83afnpg 4y ago
    They might be 80% efficient, but I think around 40% of California electricity comes from natural gas. It’s kind of silly to convert from gas to electricity to heat in terms of efficiency.
    • ricardobeat 4y ago
      It may sound silly at first, but the numbers are not far off. The added losses for 50% (power plant) and 80% (cooktop) efficiency would give you the same 40% overall, but now you don't need massive pipes carrying flammable pressurized gas everywhere. And both of those numbers are probably higher for modern equipment (ex 60/90 = 54% overall efficiency).
    • syntheweave 4y ago
      I checked this recently. California is still in the 30-40% range for gas/fossil fuels usage on average, but it has achieved a 100% renewables grid for a 15 minute period this year, and it wasn't a fluke or engineered stunt, but one more in a series of record-breaking milestones which have seen the grid periodically blast through the 90% range. So the trend looks good for electric conversion.
      • tomcam 4y ago
        Why are they preparing for widespread brownouts this summer? https://www.eenews.net/articles/grid-monitor-warns-of-u-s-blackouts-in-sobering-report/ https://www.eenews.net/articles/grid-monitor-warns-of-u-s-bl...
• DocG 4y ago
  I'm not a professional cook. I miss gas stove over the induction because: 1. I have visual indicatation on how hot it is. The numbers is just not so good indicator. 2. I miss trashing pans around, specially when managin multiple things at once. Glass induction would not be able to withstand it. So suddenly I have to be gentle with machinery. 3. God forbid I spill something in the middle of cooking on induction. Suddenly I have to try to cleanup a hot glass and manage the whole mess. Gas, because it was raised, cleanup could be done later once food prep was over. 4. I'f there is powerloss (hi wars and other stuff) I don't really care. I used to run propane tanks 11kg, no pipes, refilled once-twice a year.
  • wbsss4412 4y ago
    > God forbid I spill something in the middle of cooking on induction. Suddenly I have to try to cleanup a hot glass and manage the whole mess. I think you’re overestimating how hot induction stoves get, the element itself doesn’t heat up at all. When you have a significant spill on a gas stove, it can put the flame out partially or entirely, which is much more of a challenge than wiping off an induction element.
    • MushyRoom 4y ago
      Yeah what is 3. This smells like never used induction before.
      • sleightofmind 4y ago
        Or maybe you haven't. You can burn the sh_t out of your fingers on the glass surface of an induction cooktop. The heat does not magically stay in the cooking vessel. It radiates, as heat is wont to do. Voice of experience. I love induction and think it is safer than gas.
    • outworlder 4y ago
      Sounds like they have used a normal (resistive) electric cooktop, not an induction cooktop, and are confounding the two.
    • 4y ago
• throwaway743 4y ago
  Not a chef, but I cook nearly every meal, whether home or at my SO's. A gas stove is a world of difference compared to cooking with an electric one. One major pain point is that the number settings on electric barely provide insight as to what level of heat you're cooking with, and there seems to be a lack of consistency between one electric stove to another. Whereas with gas, you can just eye the flames and know what you're dealing with without resorting to the knob settings, regardless of which stove you're using. Another thing that comes to mind is that with a gas burner the pot/pan is above an open flame, so if you need to go from high to low heat, you can do that in an instant. With electric, the pot/pan is resting on a heated surface that gradually cools down and can really ruin whatever's cooking.
  • outworlder 4y ago
    > With electric, the pot/pan is resting on a heated surface that gradually cools down and can really ruin whatever's cooking. Sounds like you need to try an induction cooktop?
    • dekhn 4y ago
      I've only had one experience with induction- probably 15 years ago now. It was a place we stayed in hawaii (like pre-airbnb) and there was a sign saying if you even looked at it wrong it would scratch the surface (necessitating a full replacement). Are they really strong now or do you still have to worry about scratching? Some googling suggests that you still need to be careful with cast iron.
      • frosted-flakes 4y ago
        No different than a standard resistive electric stovetop with ceramic glass.
        • petre 4y ago
          It looks almost the same but it's very different as the glass doesn't heat up like the resistive and the heat is instant, like gas and unlike resistive which has a lot of inertia. The glass only heats up from the cookware which is also a safety benefit (less likely to burn yourself).
• pandaman 4y ago
  Residential gas appliances can draw up to 100 kBTU/h from the gas line. That's about 30 kW. Commercial gas lines are twice as wide, they supply 200 kBTU/h i.e. 60 kW. It's true that 30 kW is more than 2800 W though.
• Arn_Thor 4y ago
  I used to have a very negative outlook on electric cooking for Asian food, specifically where a wok is needed, because I've never seen one get hot enough to imbue the "wok hei" flavor that comes from high-temperature cooking. But then I saw there are bowl-shaped commercial induction wok cookers which should be able to more than match the heat of even the most powerful gas burners. With that, I think induction finally is a real alternative.
• petre 4y ago
  They're negating most of Asian cooking by taking away gas. This is stupid and overdoing it imho. It should be done with an adjustment period over 5 years or more. I'm all electric at home but using a wok on an induction stove is a pita and doesn't even resemble a wok. I have friends who cook as a hobby and swear by gas. Korean BBQ could be probably done on electric as well. Takes more time though. If I'd open a KBBQ restaurant tomorrow I'd probably do it on electric anyway, for safety reasons. Would hydrogen be a viable replacement for natural gas? Maybe mixed with sodium (table salt injection?) to have an orange flame instead of invisible.
  • freemint 4y ago
    Hydrogen is actually worse for the climate then natural gas right now. It is harder to transport is made from natural gas anyway. Key word: Steam Reforming Electricity to Hydrogen has much more energy waste even in a carbon neutral world.
  • davidgould 4y ago
    Most gas stove tops in the US are not great for cooking with a wok anyway as they are underpowered and the flame comes out the edges of the "sealed burner". I use an Iwatani 35FW tabletop butane burner for wok cooking which works much better than my gas stove. It claims 15,000 Btu vs my stoves 7,000. I suspect both claims are inflated, but the Iwatani will boil a pint of water in 1/4th the time of the stove. The wok is acceptably stable on it and the flame pattern is usable if not ideal. The butane cans are well under $2 and will make several meals per can. It's a bit pricey ($100-ish now) but mine has lasted six years of frequent use.
• rz2k 4y ago
  Double the voltage and double (or triple) the current for the power consumption/output of an electric range. They are in the power neighborhood of an electric clothes-dryer not an electric hairdryer. I definitely enjoy cooking with gas more, but a modern induction range will bring a full stock pot to a boil faster than the gas equivalent you find in homes.
• perryizgr8 4y ago
  > gas should provide no cost benefit If that were true, there would be no need to ban gas stoves. So we can conclude that electric cooking is more expensive than gas.