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What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

latimes.com

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Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#431

Post by b112 »

mason55 wrote: post #421
bergenty wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

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.

It's an interface issue. Instead of a knob, it's usually a touch interface, with +/- control, and slowish.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#432

Post by wheels »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #398
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #275

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; 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. > Xie estimates that he pays around $500 to $700…

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…

Not a chef, but an avid eater and obsessive home cook:

I eat at a lot of high end restaurants (and usually a couple Michelin starred places per year), many with open kitchens, and in the last 5 years I've noticed a trend towards induction. From the high end cookery blogs that I've read, it's mostly about reducing heat in the kitchen. I have worked in kitchens in the past, and it's difficult to understate the quality of life improvement by a significant reduction in kitchen temperature.

At home I've also switched to induction, and it's been in general great.

Charcoal is actually the trickier one to replace in high end cookery since it's very difficult to simulate the amount of radiant energy with electricity.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#433

Post by turtledove »

matwood wrote: post #397
BeetleB wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have statistics on people's preferences? Anecdotes: I've yet to live in an apartment/house that actually had a gas stove. No one I know made gas a criterion when house/apartment hunting. They use whatever the place has. When leaving a place with a gas stove, none of them cared if the new place would be electric or gas. On the flip side, I know quite a few people that exclude places with gas stoves when hunting…

My preference is a high end gas cooktop with an electric stove. I also like gas fireplaces. Almost everyone I know has gas and prefers it.

What about induction? The choice isn't gas vs electric anymore. Induction cooktops are night and day different from the old glowing rings style electric cooktops (which are terrible, agreed.)

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#434

Post by ricardobeat »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #275

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; 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. > Xie estimates that he pays around $500 to $700…

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.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#435

Post by chasebank »

function_seven wrote: post #361
hnov wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's ripping out and replacing existing infrastructure going to reverse climate change? Not to mention that CA is about to have a lot of electricity shortages that will likely necessitate the burning of gas to generate it.

Same way planting a seed today will give you a tree in 20 years. Existing infrastructure is emitting CO₂. The stuff we replace it with won't. The gas pipes that are shut off will no longer leak methane. The next century will be dominated by how we deal with the last century's monumental carbon emissions. We went from 300 to 400 ppm by burning immense amounts of fossil fuels. To go from 400 back to 300 will take a bit…

I can guarantee you that the fabrication / transportation / installation of a new electric unit far outweighs using the existing gas unit until end of life in terms of CO2 emissions. No different than diving a old truck vs buying a new tesla. Net negative.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#436

Post by jrockway »

kderbyma wrote: post #424

why does everyone assume that humans are supposed to be carbon neutral.........it's not based in anything except postulated opinions.....

We don't need to be carbon neutral if we find another planet to fuck up and find a way to get everyone there. In the meantime, it seems easier to just tone down how much fossil fuel we burn.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#437

Post by pkulak »

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #413
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can’t imagine many professionals would wildly appreciate changing their core tool from underneath them, regardless of whether the tool is actually better. If I wanted to stir the pot with a grenade, I’d say it’s like asking Vim users whether they should all move to VS Code.

> I’d say it’s like asking Vim users whether they should all move to VS Code.

If Vim was actively contributing to climate change and fouling the air of everyone around me, I'd switch tomorrow. VS Code has Vim bindings, I'm sure. I'll be okay. We're long past the point where everybody keeps being able to do their first favorite thing at all times, _and_ we somehow also solve this huge problem we've gotten ourselves into.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#438

Post by akira2501 »

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #301
hristov wrote: post #208

Wow. So much bullshit. Where do I start. Most importantly, the motion only bans gas appliances in new construction. Now think about this and re-read the article with this important fact in mind, and you will discover that nothing in the article is actually the least bit relevant for the proposed ordinance. Everything they talk about refers to existing restaurants in existing buildings, which will not be affected by t…

Honestly we should be banning new gas hookups (as proposed here) and going even further to incentivise removal of existing ones. Climate change is a life or death situation, and we need to be acting way faster. That alone is reason enough. The other reason is that it is better! You can actually get an induction stove to heat up faster than a gas stove, if it is wired properly

> Climate change is a life or death situation, and we need to be acting way faster.

If it is truly a "life or death" situation, then what you want to do is slow down and carefully evaluate your options to ensure you're not actually going to make things worse.

If California truly is the "land of unintended consequences" then why would we presume that will suddenly disappear just because we're doing the "right" thing?

The rhetoric and the actions do not match. Particularly here.

You're just taking some customers off of gas. Isn't the most obvious outcome that there will be alternative uses found and those industries will buy the glut? Shifting usage from one end of the stack to the other doesn't seem to do anything important in the face of this "life or death" scenario.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#439

Post by pkulak »

jeffbee wrote: post #342
russdill wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial induction woks go up to ludicrous power levels. I've seen 15 and 20 kW models online.

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.

But 3/4 of that heat goes around the wok.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#440

Post by jrockway »

brewdad wrote: post #335
al_borland wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that a lot of the actions being taken are more for optics than impact. This ban is only in LA, tiny localized action is more like someone handing you a check for 30 cents when you're a billionaire... you're probably not going to bother cashing that check. I'm not even a millionaire and I have often let checks for less than $1 sit around for too long, so I can't cash them. Focusing on these 30 cen…

I'd much rather the second largest city in the US take an initial stand that hopefully leads others to follow than sit around for 20 years waiting for Congress to fix things. The eventual legalization of marijuana at the federal level will have started with cities and states decriminalizing its possession and use. Change has to start somewhere .

Yup. "We can't fix all of humanity's problems overnight, so let's do nothing at all." is a false dichotomy.
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