UKH

Jings, Sunday night and my life has come to this. Looking to get a new kitchen and the kitchen designer/seller is recommending an induction hob. As a traditional gas kind of a guy this modern stuff is a bit of a foreign food. Any ideas or opinions from the UKC massif? 

Cheers

j

Personally I wouldn't bother it's not better than gas IMHO. 

Need special pans too, I like gas.

If you have gas why have anything else?

I have both an induction hob and a gas hob. Gas is pretty good but the induction is night and day superior to any alternative for the balance of power (amazing speed to boil), control and ease of cleaning, including while cooking.

Minor gripes include needing a new set of pans, but I like buying cookware so no biggie, and the touch sensitive controls on mine are fiddly so get one with proper knobs.

Our house came with an induction hob and if we ever get around to redoing the kitchen we'll definitely be keeping it. I was pretty skeptical at first but it's so easy to clean, heats up crazy fast and no loss of heat as everything goes into the pan and not around the sides. Due to the speed it heats up you need to watch things closely to begin with but once you learn what settings to use it is fine. There's no lag in response like you get with halogen or electric. 

The only thing I've struggled with compared to gas is popcorn because once it starts popping you need to shoogle the pan continuously and that keeps breaking the contact with the magnets so you don't maintain the heat so well. It is possible to do but there seems a v. fine balance between no popping or cremation so I've resorted to using the camping stove on rare occasion I make popcorn. 

Needs steel or cast iron. Not exactly special.

We have one, would never go back to gas.

I moved house in May and my new house has induction. I've always been a gas man as hate ceramic or halogen hobs.

The induction hob is fantastic. mine is touch control and no issues. Yes you need new pans but worth it. Gas hobs are a pain to clean. They are also safer as they cant burn anything or stay on by mistake,

If i ever redo my kitchen induction will be my first choice.

I make popcorn in the microwave.

Am I the only person here who becomes apocalyptically angry at touch controls on a hob?

I mean a knob per ring that goes from less hot to more hot is a foolproof interface that’s basically as good as it can possibly get.

Multi touch on my phone is great, but it has no place in my car or on my hob.  No no no no no no no no no.  A look around a new car showroom makes me weep and it’s getting like that with kitchens.  We have a boiling water tap at work with a safety button that’s touch.    

I once flew a mock combat flight simulator with a side stick.  That would make for the lamest remake of Top Gun ever.  I’m pretty sure that sidestick was literally the only reason I never did manage to land the F-35 properly...

What next, a touch sensitive, non-rotating steering wheel?

Pick up a handgun or a dSLR and it’s all high quality, clicky action mechanisms.  For a reason.

Tactile work needs tactile controls.  

Closed loop control would be better.  Thermal imager and camera pointing down at the hob  and you just say "Computer cook the pasta" and it takes care of regulating the temperature and stopping it boiling over while you go and do something else.

No, I totally agree.  Very annoying.

Or... the overly complex mechanism breaks and you house burns down. 

Most new pans etc work as they'd be missing a sizeable market if the produced pans that didn't. It's likely most if your existing set will be fine too.

On the hob, just as controllable as gas, far less work cleaning, especially spillages or if something boils over. 

As long as your existing pans are magnetic, they'll work just fine, just try them with a fridge magnet or similar. Love our induction hob, we don't have gas at the hob, so a no brainer for us. Just be aware of the extra load required for a large induction - may need to upgrade the cable size. We did.

For some cooking it would be better - deep frying, boiling or sugar stuff (jam, fudge etc) for example.  Getting sufficiently good measurements of temperature through arbitrary pans, pan lids and clouds of steam is however highly difficult.  Often if you’re hot enough to want precise temperature control, you are using a lid.

For some cooking like frying wood pigeon breast or a steak, computer control is the last thing I could possibly want.

The half way house is probably easier - a computer vision system that limits the power when a pan is about to boil over.  I’d use that for fire-and-forget rice and pasta.

We have a lovely set of stainless steel pans which don't work on induction (at least ours don't, I think there are some stainless pans that do) So it's no good for us, I love gas and the few times we've rented and had to use electric have been terrible and somewhat expensive too.

Jen's sister has these.

I'm still not convinced they're better than gas, but gas isn't available out in the sticks there and they're certainly better than old-fashioned electric.

They are safer, as they don't do anything unless there's a compatible pot or pan on top of them.

I've got both - I tend to favour the induction for steady cooking/boiling/simmering as it'll do a lower output. I prefer the gas for frying, since it still somehow feels more responsive, but I suspect much of that is just habituation and I don't think I'd be traumatised if I just had to use the induction. 

I do assume the induction costs more per output unit, though I've never worked it out, and maybe this - if it is true - is negated by the lack of heat wastage

Induction does some things very well eg  simmering but I find it doesn't suit my style of cooking - banging pans down, looking at the gas see what heat I want vetc

Same here, our house had a brand new induction hob in it when we bought it.  I had always been a devotee of gas and was quite skeptical, but I love the induction hob and will keep it if we re-do the kitchen.  My partner always tended to buy heavy-bottomed ferrous cookware anyway, so we didn't have to replace much of ours.

We have an  induction hob as there's no gas available. It replaces an older electric hob which I hated (having cooked on gas for many years before the last move) and although I was sceptical at first its fine. I think we had to replace one pan, as fortunately the rest were compatible. My only regret is that my Bialetti stove top coffee pots (aluminium & not large enough diameter) don't work but that was an excuse to buy an Espresso machine.

How do induction hobs cope with woking ?

You can get steel based Bialetti pots

I found it's not brilliant with a traditional steel wok as the base tends to be quite small and you don't get the heat radiation up the sides of the pan etc that you'd get with gas. 

We've bought a wider based induction compatible wok pan and that seems fine. Basically it just looks like a regular wok but has a wider surface area for the base. 

Not well. They're more comfortable just down the road in Guildford.

Can you light a candle using one or sterilize a needle?

I know, but I had 1, 2 & 4 cup pots which at the moment just sit at the back of a cupboard. And the espresso machine was a birthday present which I got about the time we redid the kitchen & meant buying steel coffee pots wasn't necessary.

But for someone else moving from gas to induction its possibly something to consider

Gas works if there is a power cut!

My last house was a gas hob and I was quite happy with that - overall, I've found you get slightly finer control of the heat, but it's a pain to clean if anything boils over and there's the risk of a gas leak if it puts the flame out.

Current house is induction and there are a few niggles, mainly around the touch buttons, but otherwise it's fine now I've got used to it. The problem really is down to the position of the buttons and the sensitivity - if anything boils over or you put a hot pan over the panel, then it can turn the whole lot off, which is annoying, but it does beep to tell you, so no too bad. It is a heck of a lot easier to clean and definitely wins in the looks department.

Got a year old one for sale if interested! (Upgrading to a flasher one with new kitchen going in, I recommend them)

No... but I have several boxes of matches, a couple of lighters and various camping stoves.

After having a very badly infected finger following a fight with some Kalymnos thorns I invested in a bunch of single use sterilised needles for removing thorns so as to make damn sure whatever I used was actually sterile. 

In reply to LastBoyScout: 

See above re. camping stoves

I'm a fan of gas for the simplicity, immediacy and the lack of bloody stupid touch controls but I am coming around to going induction when I put a hob back in. A small shift toward renewable energy and easy cleaning are both appealing.

jk

Another slightly convoluted workaround is to have your local sheet metal supplier cut you a tile of steel to put on top to act as a hotplate, converting it to a slower, dangerous electric hob

some have a special 'wok bowl' - a bowl-shaped depression specifically for woks.

assuming it doesn't have electronic ignition and you have matches/lighter.

Induction by preference over anything else

Top tip - Le Creuset ironware works fantastically on induction hobs and you can often pick it up relatively cheaply secondhand. Apart from that, be aware that not all induction-compatible cookware is equal - some brands work a lot better than others.  We have Silit silargan brand stuff from Germany and it's excellent bar the frying pan - the non-stick isn't as good as your standard tefal non-stick, so we use a standard tefal frying pan.

Although induction hobs are generally safer, I believe there's the possibility of an item of cutlery accidentally left on a live hob causing trouble as it heats up so quickly due to the low mass of metal in it.

We’ve got an induction hob that came with the house and I truly despise it. It works in pulses of power, not a constant, so boils are up and down. Simmering is nigh-on impossible and I had to replace my beloved set of heavy Analon pans when we moved in, which really grated.  As soon as I get spare funds it’s going to the tip & being replaced with gas. 

I’ll give you the cleaning advantage.  For renewable I’m wondering about this cheapish waste food digester - https://homebiogas.com/ - would need some significant insulation to work in winter though.  Methane from food waste and the neighbour’s horse muck (if needed).

You may be interested to know , Induction hobs use 95% of the energy they create where as gas wastes 50% of the energy it creates.

Yep, the IKEA knock offs also come with steel bases as I found to my surprise when our new house came with an induction hob.

I had wondered about that. Good to know. You didn't just totally make those figures up did you? Because if not I will smugly repeat them for years to come. Indeed I may well do that even if you did just make them up...

Indeed - although the thermal efficiency of a power plant burning hydrocarbons to make electricity is between 30% and 60%, so I don’t feel bad about the energy “wasted” by my gas hob.

I say “wasted” because today and for the next few months, it isn’t wasted.  It displaces the central heating system.

In terms of my environmental impact the use of a trifling amount of gas on my hob is well down the list after flying (I’ve stopped), transport (short commute, 70% of our household miles are now EV) central heading (working to insulate the whole house and adding MVHR, eventually moving to a heat pump) and electricity usage (just brought another 800W of second hand solar PV online).  Our stove represents perhaps 0.1% of our direct household energy usage.

No not made up .....take them as gospel!

Is that due to people using large burners and small pans?  

Anyway electricity generation isn't particularly efficient in most cases so it isn't really a fair comparison.

If gas remains cheaper than electricity then induction might be more efficient within the house but the gas hob will be cheaper to run. 

The heat is contained in the combustion products, and they have to be vented, taking much of the heat with them.  

Even if you channelled the hot gasses  around and around your pan in a heat exchanger, they couldn’t be cooled below the temperature of your pan and it’s contents, so not all the heat of combustion can be transferred in to the pan.

Thermodynamics is not kind to efficiency in the real world, which is why...