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The case for induction cooking

nytimes.com

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Re: The case for induction cooking

#511

Post by archi42 »

Groxx wrote: post #442
worik wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All the vents in places I've rented have seemed hilariously ineffective even on the highest and super loud setting A consumer organisation here studied "rangehoods" and (if memory serves) they found them all to close to useless. consumer.org.nz - the reports are paywalled and I no longer subscribe, so mēh!

Boil some water and watch where the steam goes. Because it's pulling air from around the pot along with it, including the hot waste gasses that heated the pot in the first place. Even on the highest settings, I've never seen one that even makes a dent, or moves the column at all. They're snake oil and fashion, nothing more. And that's before talking about the ones that don't have any ductwork, and just blow it back o…

Hm, that's not my experience: I used all three options (no hood [student dorm], circulation hood [currently in our house], outside duct hood [parents; last flat]). There is a huge difference between each. Having no hood is obviously not nice, since water vapor and fat end up everywhere. The circulation hood at least reduces the amount of fat. Not sure if by 20 or 80%, but there is a significant difference between turning it on or not. Especially the amount of fatty haze when making hamburgers is reduced a lot. Now for water vapor it does not help so well. It's okay for one pot of water (boiled eggs or pasta with pesto), but when doing some heavy cooking still a lot of water ends up condensing on the windows. With an outside duct (about 2m of duct work) water vapor becomes a non-issue and the amount of fat haze is reduced much better than with the circulation unit.

Also this isn't biased by "I don't cook". Quite the contrary :)

Re: The case for induction cooking

#512

Post by morsch »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #295
SamBam wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never understood why we need 4 or 5 burner ranges, possibly with a slight size variations. I really only ever want one high power burner and one simmer burner. I don't mean this to sound rude, though I know it will, but this is the literal definition of "argument from ignorance." You don't use more than two burners, so you don't know why a stove needs more than two. I personally frequently cook with three or a…

IMO, this would be a major advantage of countertop units. Buy two or four or six or eight, store them away in the cabinet when they’re not in use and enjoy the extra counterspace, bring them out when you need them.

I thought about doing this, but it didn't make any sense for me. The countertop units are inefficient in terms of space compared to regular stovetops. This isn't suprising, due to component sharing, the need for a case, etc. As soon as you regularly use two of them, you might as well have a stovetop.

There are also down considerations of power (wiring and maximum output) and noise (induction units have fans, which are less noticeable in stovetops), safety (accident risk from cables, tilting, etc) and convenience.

It might work if your everyday usage involves zero to one units. Which is certainly possible, if you don't cook much, but even if you are and you're using other heat sources like a rice cooker, oven, grill, microwave, etc.

Not a terrible idea to have one around when you're limited by your normal capacity, or when you want to simmer a stew at a buffet, or your stovetop breaks or you are redoing your kitchen.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#513

Post by DebtDeflation »

worik wrote: post #274
galangalalgol wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like cooking with gas because when my power goes out I can use a match to boil water when the boil water orders go into effect because mains keep bursting. Also I can make smores when I don't feel like getting a fire going. I do have an induction plug in hot plate and for actually cooking its really quite good. It boils water faster than all but my 21k btu burner on just 110v, dumps no heat into the room, cools dow…

When I put a log burner in my house I choose one with a flat top for this reason. I get your point. But many things that cause electricity to go out (floods, earthquakes... Russian invasion) will put out the gas too

>many things that cause electricity to go out ... will put out the gas too

IME, this is objectively false. I've lived in the Northeast my entire life (40+ years). We have on average 2-3 power failures lasting more than a few seconds per year. I have never in my life experienced a natural gas system failure. The pumps that pressurize the gas are themselves powered by gas, and the delivery is not in any way dependent on the power grid; also, as someone else stated, gas lines are buried well underground.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#514

Post by dtgriscom »

pwr-electronics wrote: post #503
happymellon wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Zanussi induction has physical knobs. I haven't actually seen a stove in the stores that are touch only.

The portable ones are often touch-only.

Guess: touch panels are cheaper, more reliable and more compact than physical knobs.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#515

Post by dtgriscom »

levital wrote: post #444
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> environment and is overall worse than induction would love to see an induction stove with a usable UI. everything I have used is designed by a person that never had to cook for more than 1. the automatic off during the slightest spill, and the impossibility to operate buttons with wet/greasy hands, has to be one of the biggest design mistakes in the history of engineering. my idea of a great time is to invite this…

> would love to see an induction stove with a usable UI. I bought an AEG stove last year (similar to [1], but an older model I think). Physical knobs for temperature control, no auto off on spills. Touch interface only for a few convenience features and the extra power mode, which is fine by me. I'm very happy with this stove and like cooking with it just as much as I liked gas when I had it a few years ago. [1] http…

Your link doesn't work for me; I get redirected to a "Choose your Country" page, perhaps because I'm in the USA. (FYI...)

Re: The case for induction cooking

#516

Post by bluGill »

stellar678 wrote: post #375
dehrmann wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural gas for cooking is a negligible contributor to climate change. 2.8% of natural gas in the US is used for cooking. On a per-BTU basis (which isn't fair because natural gas has fewer carbons), the natural gas/oil split of US consumption is around 40/60. You're looking at around 1% of CO2 emissions in the US coming from natural gas used directly for cooking.

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…

Where i live in the Midwest everyone has gas installed for the furnace and then the builder asks if they want a gas or electric stove. If you ask you can get a heat pump instead of just air conditioning, but it is extra cost and you still need gas heat for the really cold days we get every winter.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#517

Post by Throckmorton24 »

ekianjo wrote: post #505
Throckmorton24 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After years of lurking I created an account just to reply to this. While in the context of this article I agree with you - this author clearly has an agenda - the general MBA hate on HN amuses me so I thought I would share my anecdote. Also, Melissa Clark, the author, has a BA and an MFA. Maybe we need to hate on artists doing science? People’s lives take them down many paths. I am a “scientist” insofar as I have don…

> the general MBA hate on HN amuses me MBA graduates are by far used in companies in the Marketing and Sales departments, so interpreting my comment about them being salesmen as "hate on MBAs" is quite funny, because that's precisely how the hiring market sees them. Sure, there are scientists who happen to also have MBAs. That's a huge exception, so you won't win points by finding someone who happens to have that pro…

Another quick note: you would probably be surprised by how scientific marketing is. In one point you claim they’ve (MBAs) never been exposed to the scientific method (I would dispute) and then in your second you claim they’re researching and optimizing, which is quite true. How do you think they do that? My marketing team is consistently collecting and measuring data to test effectiveness of campaigns (hypotheses). I’m definitely not defending this article with that point - and it doesn’t make any of them experts on any particular fields within science other than data science. But they’re very much using the scientific method so I found your point to be ironic. Marketing departments now employ data scientists with PhDs and MBAs (my sister is one). So you can dislike their work product but hard to say it isn’t scientific.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#518

Post by UncleMeat »

ekianjo wrote: post #456
katbyte wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what measure? Induction wins hands down for control, responsiveness, efficiency, and heat output: https://youtu.be/hX2aZUav-54 Doing a super low temp simmer on gas is hard. Double boilers are only something you need with gas. Induction imho and experience is just better all around. What the video for someone putting it far more eloquently then I ever could.

You do realise heat transfer works completely differently in each case ? Therefore you cannot possibly replicate what they do. They are not equivalent and yes there are things you can do better in induction but the opposite is also true.

It is true that you can’t blister peppers on induction and you can’t get wok he, but you already basically can’t get that on an indoor stovetop. The actual proposed benefits of gas are so marginal that they do not affect a home cook.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#519

Post by dtgriscom »

emteycz wrote: post #507
Kliment wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cannot imagine cooking with fewer than 3 rings. You're allowed to own more than one standalone induction plate. And you're also allowed to position them freely over your work area :)

You're not always allowed to put them into electric sockets and turn them on all at once, though. There's usually special electric wiring done to handle the load of electric stoves.

In the US, at least, the standard is to have outlets every 4' (I think), and have the outlets alternate circuits. So, you plug into two adjacent outlets (not the same two in the same box, but adjacent boxes) and you'll be on different circuits.

Re: The case for induction cooking

#520

Post by UncleMeat »

mattmaroon wrote: post #298
cespare wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/watc…

You’ll never really get wok hei with induction. It’s a mistake to think of a wok as just a differently shaped pan. Proper wok cooking is cooking is actually mechanically different. It’s mostly done with the hot air that rises up the side of the wok. Modernist cuisine has a great cutaway illustration on this. The food is constantly flipped into the air above the wok where it is heated by the extremely hot air. Of cour…

Yep. All of the “I want wok hei” complaints are nonsense because virtually no indoor burner ever gets that hot. If you cook in a wok often and want the restaurant taste then an outdoor propane burner does the trick for only a few hundred bucks.
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