Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The case for induction cooking

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 647 posts

Re: The case for induction cooking

#491

Post by eternityforest »

js2 wrote: post #142

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 work…

Journalism in general seems to be in trouble and people take real problems and add embellishment.

I'd still rather not breathe any harmful agents at all though, when better tech exists.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#492

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

ekianjo wrote: post #450
stellar678 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is "I absolutely must have gas installed in my house for cooking" turns into "well let's buy the gas water heater, and the gas central heating, and the gas dryer" and all of a sudden you're using was more piped-in gas for for non-cooking things than you are for cooking, but "cooking with gas" was the hydrocarbon foot in the door at your house. Otherwise you might opt for an electric tankless water heater, a…

You seem to think electricity is not produced by fossil fuels. In most countries the majority is made with gas and coal.

doesn't matter. gas pipes leak, and shall appliances aren't efficient, so even if the grid was 100% fossil fuel (which it's not), it still would be more efficient to use electric in the home.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#493

Post by StockHuman »

punnerud wrote: post #387
donw wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, this. I like induction stoves. Easier to clean, and do 90% of what I need doing in a kitchen. Not having to run gas lines is a plus, and for the other 10%, I'm probably working on a grill or using a dedicated burner anyway. But the UIs are awful. Stop turning yourself off. Yes, I do intend to cook the thing I put on you for six hours. Just fucking do it. Give me a knob. Gas stoves use knobs for good reasons. You…

You get them with knobs: https://www.smeg.com/cookers/electric Spilling have to be a gas thing? I experience it maybe once every three months on a induction oven (what I have at home). I hated the gas oven when I studied in US, impossible to control the temperature accurately and boilover almost every time. Not even any faster.

Suggesting Smeg to someone concerned with quality undermines your point.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#494

Post by newaccount74 »

namibj wrote: post #354
gcheong wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what it is about induction that makes a rheostatic-like control unfeasible but the most I've seen is about 20 levels so you might be waiting a while.

Many more are a problem without a knob to speed through the steps. There's no reason an induction hob can't be run with delta-sigma over it's normal low-resolution PWM to get accurate, high-resolution average power control. 1% power accuracy is easy, 0.1% is a few bucks more per "burner".

The problem I've seen with some induction hobs is that the low power settings are basically 1 second on / 5 seconds off, which is kinda annoying when the liquid goes between boiling violently / not boiling at all. Maybe thicker pots would help smoothing that out, though.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#495

Post by dataduck »

Aeolos wrote: post #483
golem14 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-topic, but another area where it seems hard to get good answers is what cooking oil is actually best. E.g., palm oil / coconut oil gets hyped lately, but is it really healthy (in a meaningful way)? Is it gentle on the environment (very likely not). The industries (merchants of doubt) are so active, it's absolutely nontrivial for a well meaning layman not wanting to invest oddles of time to get to good conclusions…

Just use olive oil for everything except deep frying. It really is the best, and what is used by high end restaurants almost exclusively. The smoking point is not a problem, the nasty stuff start appearing as couple dozen degrees _above_ the smoking point, so you can use that as an early warning system. It also contains antioxidants, which bind some of the nasty stuff for a while, so it really is better for you for r…

> The smoking point is not a problem

Could not disagree more. Olive oil will be spewing smoke and changing flavour well before you get to a sensible temperature for shallow or stir frying. It is very tasty and apparently quite good for you, so it's a great choice for low-temperature cooking, but anywhere smoking point is important, olive oil is not what you're looking for.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#496

Post by morsch »

universa1 wrote: post #482
morsch wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are standalone induction cooktops. It's common to install a cooktop on top of an oven by the same manufacturer. In that category, there are still many devices (from many manufactures, low and high end) with rotating knobs, integrated into the oven component. https://geizhals.de/?cat=hherdset&xf=1959_Induktion~8421_60~...

well, maybe was common, with a bit of money and a new kitchen I would guess it is more common to separate the two entities and not have the oven on the floor... also very neat for the dishwasher if you have the space :-)

No, I think they are common and will be common for the foreseeable future even for most new construction, but I can't be bothered to find any references, which are unlikely to be publicly available anyway.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#497

Post by ascar »

com2kid wrote: post #145
ascar wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow German I didn't go induction on purpose, because I prefer the ceramic hob cooking experience. "Pans cannot be used" wasn't part of the decision. Having "control nobs" on the front rather than a touch area on the cooking surface was a hard requirement for me though and seems to be getting rarer every year. I'm actually amazed how much people love induction here, but I guess that's also because it's mostly…

What? Ceramic cook tops are crap, they get stained easily, scratched easily, and in the US at least, the way they work to "adjust" the temperature is to cycle on and off every few seconds. Oh and if any of your pots or pans get warped, they become completely unusable! Drop anything heavy on it, and the cook top breaks. I once waited for 20 minutes for a small pot of water to boil on a ceramic cook top. The old fashio…

My ceramic cooktop is basically stain and scratchfree after using it for cooking 4-5 times a week for 8 years. It's incredibly easy to clean as you can literally scratch of everything that doesn't just wipe away.

The temperature does cycle on and off usually based on a thermometer, so it does hold the selected temperature. I don't get why that's a drawback for you? The cooktop will literally be kept to your selected temperature.

Also the induction cooktops I know use the same kind of glass or ceramic plate on top, so you have the same advantages/disadvantages in regards to scratching, cleaning and breaking it.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#499

Post by ascar »

legulere wrote: post #186
ascar wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow German I didn't go induction on purpose, because I prefer the ceramic hob cooking experience. "Pans cannot be used" wasn't part of the decision. Having "control nobs" on the front rather than a touch area on the cooking surface was a hard requirement for me though and seems to be getting rarer every year. I'm actually amazed how much people love induction here, but I guess that's also because it's mostly…

I have induction with the control nobs to the front in the oven. That does exist, I guess you have to buy it together with the oven. Induction is greatly superior to electric heating plates, ceramic or even metal, as it is much faster and more energy efficient. Whenever you use it you never want to go back.

Yea I know it exists, it was just really rare from my limited shopping experience.

I have used induction a couple of times when cooking at my parents house and in a friends kitchen and I happily stay with my ceramic cooktop. Induction is much quicker and more energy efficient, but I just like that I literally control the heat on a fixed size cookfield rather than controlling the strength of the current, where effective heat will depend on the size of the pan.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#500

Post by neurostimulant »

worik wrote: post #287
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #61

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 t…

Cannot use copper bottomed pots. I got a nice collection of copper bottomed pots when my mother bought her induction cooker....

You can still use electric stoves, just don't use the induction one. Ceramics cooktops uses old-school heating elements, which is less efficient than induction but works on any pots. Some brands even offer hybrid stoves which have both heating elements and induction zones.
Post reply on HN