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 Which is not peer-reviewed and not published in a reputable journal.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.
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 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)
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.
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.
It'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.
Main 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
> 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.
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)
FWIW, what you call vitro-ceramic is known in the UK as a halogen hob. It comprises a vitro-ceramic surface on top of a halogen bulb; we chose to name the whole thing after different parts!
I’ve always wondered how Italians will handle the transition when it inevitably happens, that tilting & just a ton more movement in general over the flame seems super common there
There are shaped induction systems, most commonly for woks or industrial heating applications. However, as it needs to very closely match the external shape of the cookware, the technical and commercial viability of a generic system would be relatively low, which is why you don't often see them marketed.
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.
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.
"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
They aren't as popular in the US because they're considered commercial appliances and it's assumed you are on a business budget if you want to buy one. This means the store carries like 3 models and they cost literally ten times as much as a traditional glass cooktop. $250 vs. $2500.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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 $$$$.
I think that's because most homes do not have sufficient electrical power to run everything at once.
For example: 50A for the heat pump, 50A to charge your car, 50A for the range, 30A for the dryer, 30A for the water heater = 210A (all my examples are for 240V) + various lights and other things. Homes in the US are most commonly wired for 100, 150, or 200A.
So they'll run the range at 30A instead, but that means you can't use all the burners at the same time at full power.
If we are actually going to fully electrify the home 200A or more service is going to have to become the starting point. Residential panels > 200A in the US are rare (from what I read most power companies won't even supply such service), and that might need to change.
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
The better European induction cooktops have an individual touch slider control per "ring". I have some family members with those and that control model makes the touch thing a non-issue. No need to wait while pressing +/- either, you just plonk your finger down roughly where you want to be and slide to fine-tune.
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.
crazy that they would put a touch screen. Ones in Japan are just like little plus/minus arrows (plus button serving as the per-heat-source on button as well). Built-in timer and everything.
The buttons are those little plastic overlays on simple button, so super easy to clean, usable when dirty... and definitely dirt cheap.
American appliance designers should really try just copying good foreign products one of these days. Y'all are in million dollar homes with appliance setups worse than student appartments in many places
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.
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.
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.
> 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...
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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?
I share this experience and I'm also moving from induction back to gas after around 6 years of use.
I've experienced the uneven heat (liquid boiling right over the coil, cold next to it), shitty duty-cycle pulsing (no way of getting a proper low flame) and actually insuficient power when e.g. deep frying (it would throttle back when too hot and temperature actually dropped).
And terrible capacitive controls.
I've moved places and my kitchen now vents straight outside, so the choice is clear for me: gas.
[+] [-] neonate|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] js2|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] leoedin|4 years ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] cespare|4 years ago|reply
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)
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.
[+] [-] noveltyaccount|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] henrikschroder|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] m3kw9|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vetinari|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] npsimons|4 years ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] BrandoElFollito|4 years ago|reply
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)
[+] [-] twic|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] finiteseries|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] contingencies|4 years ago|reply
Copper and aluminium capable induction systems exist by varying the frequency. https://na.panasonic.com/us/food-service-systems/commercial-...
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] worik|4 years ago|reply
I got a nice collection of copper bottomed pots when my mother bought her induction cooker....
[+] [-] noveltyaccount|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ptomato|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] musikele|4 years ago|reply
That's why, for a european like me, an article like this one seems totally extraneous to hacker news front page
[+] [-] jandrese|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hades32|4 years ago|reply
But also few here use gas. It's mostly ceramic hobs
[+] [-] benoliver999|4 years ago|reply
Having read this article I noticed that they aren't all like this.
[+] [-] ginnungagap|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] moistly|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] amluto|4 years ago|reply
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|4 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] cafemachiavelli|4 years ago|reply
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|4 years ago|reply
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 $$$$.
[+] [-] ars|4 years ago|reply
For example: 50A for the heat pump, 50A to charge your car, 50A for the range, 30A for the dryer, 30A for the water heater = 210A (all my examples are for 240V) + various lights and other things. Homes in the US are most commonly wired for 100, 150, or 200A.
So they'll run the range at 30A instead, but that means you can't use all the burners at the same time at full power.
If we are actually going to fully electrify the home 200A or more service is going to have to become the starting point. Residential panels > 200A in the US are rare (from what I read most power companies won't even supply such service), and that might need to change.
[+] [-] itcrowd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] random_upvoter|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ambroos|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gwinsyth|4 years ago|reply
As for knobs, I'm willing to bet that there are some induction stoves with knobs.
[+] [-] rtpg|4 years ago|reply
The buttons are those little plastic overlays on simple button, so super easy to clean, usable when dirty... and definitely dirt cheap.
American appliance designers should really try just copying good foreign products one of these days. Y'all are in million dollar homes with appliance setups worse than student appartments in many places
[+] [-] smilespray|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] euthymiclabs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nemo1618|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Wowfunhappy|4 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] oxplot|4 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] Qub3d|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] colechristensen|4 years ago|reply
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|4 years ago|reply
“Probably”
“Don’t know what they’re really talking about”
Do you have evidence for these counter claims?
[+] [-] prometheus76|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] naiwenwt|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] miduil|4 years ago|reply
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-Prot...
[+] [-] tristor|4 years ago|reply
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|4 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] adlpz|4 years ago|reply
I've experienced the uneven heat (liquid boiling right over the coil, cold next to it), shitty duty-cycle pulsing (no way of getting a proper low flame) and actually insuficient power when e.g. deep frying (it would throttle back when too hot and temperature actually dropped).
And terrible capacitive controls.
I've moved places and my kitchen now vents straight outside, so the choice is clear for me: gas.