> Induction stoves are bloody awful and a huge regression from gas, even electric coil
You must have used an underpower induction plate. Gas carries a lot of energy, a standard house power outlet cannot deliver that much energy.
Induction stoves with enough power are slightly less reactive than gas, and can only use cookware that is magnetic, but MUCH more energy efficient (you only heat the cookware, not the air around it) and much easier to clean than gas stoves.
Electrical coil are so slow to react to heat change that cooking in them is a different skill altogether, and makes some cooking more difficult.
My problem with induction burners is half the cookware I own doesn't work on them. Turns out, even a lot of stainless steel pots and pans have aluminum bottoms. I also don't like the way the heat changes instantly, or near instantly. It changes the 'feel' of cooking. I don't really know how else to word it. I notice it most when bringing things down to a simmer. The pan cools down instantly instead of slowly cooling so I end up slowly lowering the temperature instead of just dropping it down.
They sure are great for boiling water though and I do find they work really well with cast iron pots and pans.
It can be just that simply your stainless steel cookware simply is not magnetic as opposed to having aluminium bottom, as about half of all stainless steel alloys are in fact not magnetic.
On the other hand it infuriates me that the cookware has to be magnetic in the first place. It should suffice that the cookware is conductive. I suspect that the only reason why it has to be magnetic is that the stove uses the magnetic properties to detect that there is some cookware. (In fact in industrial practice induction heating is mostly used to heat non-magnetic and often even “questionably conductive” materials)
Magnets stick to the top of the pan but not the bottom, i've checked. There's a dividing line across the middle of the pan separating the bottom from the top. From what i've read, they'll make the bottom of some steel pans aluminum because it'll help the pan heat up quicker than steel alone.
>I suspect that the only reason why it has to be magnetic is that the stove uses the magnetic properties to detect that there is some cookware.
I could see this. My main experience with an induction burner is with a single burner hot plate, but it seems to be pretty heavily safety oriented. It defaults to a timed mode when you turn it on unless you select otherwise, you can't leave it on high heat for longer than a certain time or it'll shut off automatically regardless of the setting, and it shuts off after about 30 seconds when you take the pan off or when you put non-magnetic cookware on. For something that produces no heat itself and seems to lack many of the fire hazards of normal burners it sure seems designed to ensure you're going to burn your house down.
The reason why you cannot keep induction stove indefinitely on the highest power setting usually is that the cooling solution of internal electronics is not designed to reliably dissipate the maximum power loss continuously (it is similar idea as turboboost of current intel CPUs, some stove vendors even market it as turbosomething(TM)). As for maximum power most european (ie. 230V) induction stoves are designed to be powered from two distinct AC phases and the electronics can distinguish between two distinct phases and both power inputs shorted together and limit maximum total power accordingly.
Induction stoves mostly run at 30kHz or so; at such a low frequency, your skin depth for non-ferrous metals is measured in centimeters to decimeters. Industrial induction heating sometimes benefits from such a deep skin depth, depending on the application, but it's a drag when you're cooking. Industrial induction heating that wants a thinner skin depth on non-ferrous metals uses higher frequencies, sometimes up to the MHz.
Induction heating does not heat up questionably conductive materials, unless you mean graphite.
What you call a feel is what I call a skill. It's a different skill to cook on electric coil vs gas or induction, and I find it more difficult on electric could, because you cannot do away with the inertia (beside removing the pan from the heat completely), and it is difficult to understand small changes in heat input, because of the lack of immediate feedback.
True, I do agree with you and the more practice I get, the easier it gets. For the first few times I would take the pan off the burner like an electric coil burner. I did learn to just lower the temperature instead eventually and I'm sure i'll get more comfortable the more I practice with it.
Honestly, I'm sure in the end, there's people who could argue the pros and cons of all three and they'd probably all be right. Personally, if I could have a dream kitchen I'd just have all three available and use whichever seemed most suited to what I'm cooking.
I'm starting to put together a new kitchen and this is essentially what I'm planning on. I used to think that gas was the only way to go, but now that I've lived in a house with a good 240V modern electric I see that they aren't so bad and are easier to clean. Gas cooking will come from my 1959 house's built in hibachi (I think that is what it's called) and induction will come in the form of an plug-in induction plate when I'm cooking big meals — No need to build the kitchen for the two days a year that I cook big meals — A 30" electric range is good enough for everyday cooking.
> MUCH more energy efficient (you only heat the cookware, not the air around it)
They can be even more efficient, if you put insulation between the glass and your cooking pot. The pot is about 1cm from the coil even when directly on the glass, so additional ~3mm is no issue.
I reduced the fan speed due to noise, so I keep 3mm pot-sized cardboard on my induction plate as a precaution, to reduce underside heat loss.
Without cardboard, the plate's lowest setting is slightly more than I would prefer for cooking (~100C, minimal boil-off). With the cardboard, I need to periodically turn it on/off or it's just too wild for cooking with cover on.
Maybe better designs waste less, but there is significant heat transfer through glass, which is then fanned out the back.
> Induction stoves with enough power are slightly less reactive than gas, and can only use cookware that is magnetic, but MUCH more energy efficient (you only heat the cookware, not the air around it) and much easier to clean than gas stoves.
I kinda disagree on the cleaning bit. the induction stoves I'm familiar with have a glass top, which is great for cleaning off bits of food gunk, but terrible for doing stuff like seasoning a cast iron pan. on a gas burner, you just put a thin coat of oil all over the pan and put it on medium-high for 15 minutes or so. if you try this on a glass top, you end up "seasoning" the glass itself with a layer of polymerized fat. it's really difficult to get this off.
As long as you have an oven, it doesn't really matter, since you can season there, or on your grill. It seems a little strange to ding induction on the basis of being bad at something you only do about once per pan, and for which there are moreover alternatives.
the whole pan needs to be seasoned if you don't want it to rust. the actual cooking surface needs to get "refreshed" more often though.
in any case, the same problem occurs if any random drops of fat get sandwiched between the pan and surface, which happens pretty often just from splattering.
I listed as an aesthetic difference. Maybe some people like induction plates. My experience with them (in rentals, hotels and my present apartment) is they deliver very little heat, slowly. If there is some "not underpowered" variety, they're not used very often, and coil stoves work better. They also scratch easily; adding planned obsolescence to your stove experience. There's nothing scratchable in coils or gas stoves; and I'm pretty sure that's why the latter two have gone away.
Full induction stove tops typically require higher amp line. I'm sure hotels don't put in special cabling just for that, and imagine the same with lots or rental place.
As other posters, my experience with mid quality fill induction tops is that they don't scratch (had the same one for over a decade).
Needing special cookware was the one thing that made us hesitate between gas and induction when we re-did our kitchen, but we let milk overbook one morning on an electrical coil stove and the decision was made to go with induction while we spend an hour cleaning that stove!
I use a Duxtop 9100MC 1800W induction plate for most of my cooking and it's quite powerful. Settings above 6 are only good for searing steak and boiling water. No scratches after five years.
Bought it because the apartment's dopey coil stove takes forever to do anything.
You must have used an underpower induction plate. Gas carries a lot of energy, a standard house power outlet cannot deliver that much energy.
Induction stoves with enough power are slightly less reactive than gas, and can only use cookware that is magnetic, but MUCH more energy efficient (you only heat the cookware, not the air around it) and much easier to clean than gas stoves.
Electrical coil are so slow to react to heat change that cooking in them is a different skill altogether, and makes some cooking more difficult.