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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

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.

ricardobeat 4y ago
I've never cooked with copper pans, but I've made all three of those on induction and a steel pan without issues. Temp changes are noticeable almost immediately. There are also aluminum pans with a steel insert at the bottom, made for induction, that have terrible heat retention if you prefer that.
CWuestefeld 4y ago
I'm not sure why you're limiting the discussion to inductive stoves. Technology Connections showed resistive heating working most efficiently.
- cthalupa 4y ago
  Resistive burners are efficient (though the induction burner he used was faster), but they are not responsive - the heat built up in them does not dissipate nearly as quickly as when you lower the flame on a gas burner. Induction burners are way better in this regard, but you're limited in the cookware you can use. Even aluminum or copper cookware with steel plates don't solve this, because the steel plate does retain the heat. The combination of having a responsive vessel and a responsive heat source gives you a lot more control than just pulling the pan off the heat source and hoping you can juggle it cooling down vs. getting the temp right on the burner, etc. With copper and gas, it is incredibly easy for me to course correct if I realize I'm off on my temp. Copper losing heat so quickly is the key here. To be clear, I'm not arguing that you can't create a good sauce or work with a delicate protein using induction burners and stainless steel or similar. It's certainly not a requirement! But copper and gas can make it a lot easier once you learn how to use them. Serious Eats did a good primer on copper cookware, including some interesting links like the cooking for engineers post -https://www.seriouseats.com/buying-copper-cookware https://www.seriouseats.com/buying-copper-cookware Alex the French Cooking Guy did a video where he purchased a very high end copper sauce pot, and discusses a bit in it (and the rest of his series on sauces) why he went for copper - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ddRK_jG6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ddRK_jG6E And then there's the element to some stir fried dishes that simply can't be recreated with inductive or resisitive burners alone. Wok Hei isn't universal in Chinese stir-fry, despite some people acting like you have to incorporate it for every single dish you make in a wok, but it is important for some dishes and some regional cuisines. The science behind what wok hei is enough that there are whole chapters dedicated to it in serious treatises on stir frying like Kenji Alt-Lopez's latest book, but the cliff notes is that a lot of it has to do with flames licking up over the the wok. You can kind of recreate this at home by using a small hand torch, but I've never had as good of results with that as going to my backyard and hooking up my high BTU wok burner. Which reminds me of a good point - propane and butane are not classified as greenhouse gasses, and are perfectly viable substitutes for cooking with gas. I use butane for my indoor Iwatani burner, and propane for my outdoor burner and pizza oven. For indoor use both have general air quality/pollution issues (though no more than existing gas setups, from my understanding), so they're not a magic bullet. But the vast majority of my cooking happens on my induction burner - I'm not super concerned about the infrequent exposure when I really need to reach for the Iwatani to achieve what I'm after.
  - CWuestefeld 4y ago
    they are not responsive - the heat built up in them does not dissipate nearly as quickly as when you lower the flame on a gas burner. Clearly this is true, but I don't see any reason it needs to be under most usage conditions. On my electric stove, when I want to stop applying heat, I move the pan to side, off the heated surface.
- bcbrown 4y ago
  Everything I said applies to resistive heating as well. Efficiency isn't the only relevant metric, and I was attempting to explain how another metric, responsiveness, is more important to me.

ricardobeat 4y ago

I've never cooked with copper pans, but I've made all three of those on induction and a steel pan without issues. Temp changes are noticeable almost immediately. There are also aluminum pans with a steel insert at the bottom, made for induction, that have terrible heat retention if you prefer that.

CWuestefeld 4y ago

I'm not sure why you're limiting the discussion to inductive stoves. Technology Connections showed resistive heating working most efficiently.

cthalupa 4y ago
Resistive burners are efficient (though the induction burner he used was faster), but they are not responsive - the heat built up in them does not dissipate nearly as quickly as when you lower the flame on a gas burner. Induction burners are way better in this regard, but you're limited in the cookware you can use. Even aluminum or copper cookware with steel plates don't solve this, because the steel plate does retain the heat. The combination of having a responsive vessel and a responsive heat source gives you a lot more control than just pulling the pan off the heat source and hoping you can juggle it cooling down vs. getting the temp right on the burner, etc. With copper and gas, it is incredibly easy for me to course correct if I realize I'm off on my temp. Copper losing heat so quickly is the key here. To be clear, I'm not arguing that you can't create a good sauce or work with a delicate protein using induction burners and stainless steel or similar. It's certainly not a requirement! But copper and gas can make it a lot easier once you learn how to use them. Serious Eats did a good primer on copper cookware, including some interesting links like the cooking for engineers post -https://www.seriouseats.com/buying-copper-cookware https://www.seriouseats.com/buying-copper-cookware Alex the French Cooking Guy did a video where he purchased a very high end copper sauce pot, and discusses a bit in it (and the rest of his series on sauces) why he went for copper - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ddRK_jG6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ddRK_jG6E And then there's the element to some stir fried dishes that simply can't be recreated with inductive or resisitive burners alone. Wok Hei isn't universal in Chinese stir-fry, despite some people acting like you have to incorporate it for every single dish you make in a wok, but it is important for some dishes and some regional cuisines. The science behind what wok hei is enough that there are whole chapters dedicated to it in serious treatises on stir frying like Kenji Alt-Lopez's latest book, but the cliff notes is that a lot of it has to do with flames licking up over the the wok. You can kind of recreate this at home by using a small hand torch, but I've never had as good of results with that as going to my backyard and hooking up my high BTU wok burner. Which reminds me of a good point - propane and butane are not classified as greenhouse gasses, and are perfectly viable substitutes for cooking with gas. I use butane for my indoor Iwatani burner, and propane for my outdoor burner and pizza oven. For indoor use both have general air quality/pollution issues (though no more than existing gas setups, from my understanding), so they're not a magic bullet. But the vast majority of my cooking happens on my induction burner - I'm not super concerned about the infrequent exposure when I really need to reach for the Iwatani to achieve what I'm after.
- CWuestefeld 4y ago
  they are not responsive - the heat built up in them does not dissipate nearly as quickly as when you lower the flame on a gas burner. Clearly this is true, but I don't see any reason it needs to be under most usage conditions. On my electric stove, when I want to stop applying heat, I move the pan to side, off the heated surface.
bcbrown 4y ago
Everything I said applies to resistive heating as well. Efficiency isn't the only relevant metric, and I was attempting to explain how another metric, responsiveness, is more important to me.