| ▲ | sm-silversight 2 days ago |
| I don't care. Quality-of-life. I cook in a pan every day. Nothing but an open flame gives me the kind of control I need to cook with the precision I do. Whatever the harmful effects on my health are, that is a trade I make consciously. My life would be noticeably worse without my open-flame stove. I'd wager anyone who opines otherwise in this thread barely cooks or doesn't cook in a serious fashion. A gas stove is a tradesman's tool. |
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| ▲ | syntaxing 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| No way. I cook everyday and induction is vastly superior than gas. The only time fire is vastly superior is when I use a wok which I have a stove I use outdoors. Most induction stoves have temperature maintained too. So it can keep your oil at a specific temperature let it be frying or confit or roasting spices. |
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| ▲ | chomp 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Can’t (properly) cook a tortilla on an electric burner, though you can get subpar results in a pan Can’t char a pepper on an electric burner Can’t heat a nabe on an electric burner Also during hurricane season, my gas burner still works when the power goes out. The list goes on of things that electric simply cannot do. To claim one is superior over the other ignores a lot of the ways people cook. They are just simply different cooking tools. | | |
| ▲ | pkulak 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Does the list _really_ go on though? I think we basically exhausted it (and one on that list is solved with a $10 torch, one with a cast iron pan, the other with an induction-friendly nabe). You can make lists for induction too: - Can't temper chocolate, cook a hollandaise, or do anything that requires low heat without using a double boiler. - Can't boil a large pot of water in under 20 minutes (unless you have a high-power/commercial burner that will absolutely murder indoor air quality/conditioning). - Can't set the temperature of the pan (or even the contents), rather than just the power level. Think, maintaining an oil temp for deep frying, or a surface temp for browning. That last one is a really big deal. Imagine if ovens still just had power levels (low/med/high) instead of thermostats. | | |
| ▲ | hellisothers 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Let’s assume we both have nice ranges. - I can temper on my 7k BTU burner - I can boil water quick AF on my 18k BTU burner - setting pan temp isn’t a thing, there are no recipes that call for a pan temp. Oil temp? Sure and that is why you have a thermometer, very solved problem. For browning etc you do it by time and feel, even if you could set a pan temp you wouldn’t just leave your meat on it for some temp x time amount. | | |
| ▲ | pkulak 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I'll take your word on those first two. I've used gas ranges, and the smallest burner has never been small enough to avoid putting itself out. And the largest one has always taken ages to boil water. Especially since the largest one usually pops the damn flame beyond the edges of the pot. But it's possible I've never used a really nice gas range. Though, FWIW, my current induction range is the cheapest model they had on sale 10 years ago, and it handles both perfectly. For the last one, just because you're an elite chef and can cook a steak perfectly every time on feel, doesn't mean I am. :D I can buy a $40 steak and know I'm not going to ruin it because I can maintain my pan at 350f, which will brown it and not burn it. I can make pancakes without constantly adjusting the cook time and heat every single batch as the pan continually absorbs more and more heat throughout the cook. I can put a chili on, set it to 204 degrees, then just leave and come back in a few hours without babying the power knob for the first hour trying to get it to a stable, gentle simmer. I can braise meats without using my oven, because I can keep a liquid at 180 degrees. I can make a soup at 3pm, then put in on at 145 degrees for a few hours until dinner. It's not about having a "recipe", you learn 4-5 important temperatures after a couple weeks of using it. | | |
| ▲ | LargoLasskhyfv a day ago | parent [-] | | > It's not about having a "recipe", you learn 4-5 important temperatures after a couple weeks of using it. Yes. Because of the quick reaction times, and being able to precisely set temperatures, and even temperature profiles over time with more advanced models. Of the contents, in the pot or pan. Not just the outside. For me it was a revelation. Needs much less experience and intuition. Eliminates much guesswork if you don't have much of the former. Given you have a sufficient electric installation. If not, there are some crazies offering induction-cooktops with built-in battery, to compensate for the lack of that, boosting it up, sufficient for most cooking they claim. I'd rather not ;-> |
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| ▲ | btreecat 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's not just how much water can you boil and how fast, it's the excess heat and significant hit to indoor air quality, and CO2 concentration |
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| ▲ | chomp 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I mean really, all of my examples involve on-demand flame at a BTU higher than a torch, so I suppose the list doesn’t go on if you exclude things like charring eggplant for baba ganoush. Induction is super awesome for maintaining temp. But one isn’t superior over the other in all cases. My point was purely, people need high BTU fire sometimes based off how they cook. I mean, you won’t see me cooking tagine, but surely someone in the world cooks tagine? | | |
| ▲ | pkulak 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Fair enough. I do actually have a camping stove that I've used a couple times when I needed a flame. |
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| ▲ | ryan_lane 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Can't set the temperature of the pan My gas stovetop in japan has a temperature sensor, and can detect excess temperature (food or oil burning), maintain a temperature, etc. It's possible with gas. That said, I miss my induction stovetop, and I'm building a house, and it'll have induction, rather than gas. |
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| ▲ | Hikikomori 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I get good tortillas on induction. Can char pepper in the oven. Can also get a portable gas stove. | |
| ▲ | shimman 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can literally do all these (except nabe, don't understand what's happening there) with a basic cast iron pan + induction stove top. They may be different cooking tools but if one is ruining the quality of your life + possibly children, wouldn't you rather do it the safe way? Or are your habits more important than your health? | | |
| ▲ | chomp 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You absolutely cannot do the same thing with a cast iron, I promise. | | |
| ▲ | shimman 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Char food? I do that several times a week. You realize things get hot and you can cook right? Gas stove tops aren't the only thing capable of generating heat. Induction is simply better. Way safer too. |
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| ▲ | LargoLasskhyfv a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Depends on your electricity. Induction will stay shitty at 120V AC. It needs at least 2500 Watts sustained per pot/pan, to be good. > Also during hurricane season, my gas burner still works when the power goes out. 'Powerwall' or similar? |
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| ▲ | hellisothers 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Maybe it’s because my wife is literally a chef but you’ll have to pull her gas range/oven out of her dead hands. She’s worked with induction before for years, it is not the same league. For instance, you can’t tilt the pan. | | |
| ▲ | cmclaughlin 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I have a Bosch induction range and it doesn't immediately turn off the "burner" or beep when the pan is lifted up, so yeah I can tilt the pan. | | |
| ▲ | LargoLasskhyfv a day ago | parent [-] | | Me too. I'm not following it that much, but I heard more and more chefs using and recommending it. It's only here on HN, where I stumble upon the stubborn naysayers :-) |
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| ▲ | Forgeties79 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah I was going to say, induction is the shit. Normal electric stove tops are a far cry from them and people should not assume they’re anything alike other than a non-flame process. | |
| ▲ | PhotonHunter 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Except that on all but the most expensive hobs, "simmer" is on-off and scorches the sauce. And on all but the most expensive hobs, the coil is much smaller than the pan you'd want to use (and many times much smaller than advertised). And the sides don't heat up like gas. And you can't use copper or clay pots like gas. And like many electronic things but unlike gas or the old resistive coil tops, induction seems to have longevity problems (perhaps that gets better as the technology matures, or perhaps it runs into the same electronic parts availability issues that plague modern appliances, I tend to think the latter). Induction is fantastic for boiling water, and good for many things, but there's too many shortcomings to declare "superior than gas". | | |
| ▲ | acdha 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Those are either artifacts of a bad stove or using extremely thin pans. We have a fairly low-mid range model and the low mode doesn’t burn anything and the coils match the sizes of the pans we use. I agree it’s not great to get rid of a pure copper pot but those (and even many of the Korean dolsot pots) seem to be easily available with induction bases now. The flip side was that our cheap $5 IKEA cast iron works even better so we use it more, and this was also true of some Costco ceramic skillets which weren’t trying to be so light that they didn’t have a hefty iron slug. Between air quality and child safety, my general decision tree is simple: “are you a chef doing things like wok cooking?” Induction is probably better if you don’t have a specific technique requiring unusually high BTU output. I have had to learn to stop saying “come on” when we visit relatives with gas stoves, though. | | |
| ▲ | PhotonHunter a day ago | parent [-] | | > Those are either artifacts of a bad stove or using extremely thin pans. We have a fairly low-mid range model and the low mode doesn’t burn anything and the coils match the sizes of the pans we use. It’s a smaller than advertised coil, 6”, causing the problem, which is endemic but not limited to portable hobs. Warped a Lodge carbon steel pan the first time I used induction (2mm thick). Then I dove deeper and saw the issues others had. Since then I moved to a larger coil (first a Max Burton, now a Nuwave PIC Titanium). On reddit, you can find any number of examples of shattered cast iron pans and warped pans and ruined seasoning, and it’s not just portable hobs causing the issues. The issue with simmer is well-known and rears its head if you’re working with delicate sauces. Most people don’t. Induction bases don’t fix that gas heats the sides too and if you’re able to use that feature it’s not something you want to give up. And actually, wok cooking on induction is pretty darn good if you have one of the specialty wok hobs, better than a wok ring on gas (but not better than a specialty wok burner). Again, my point isn’t that induction sucks, it’s that it isn’t superior to gas across the board. My dream setup? One proper induction burner, one induction wok burner, a French top in the center, and two proper gas burners on the other side, all with a giant vent fan. | | |
| ▲ | LargoLasskhyfv a day ago | parent [-] | | The cheap cooktop which I got out of curiosity about 15 years ago now, had segmented coils(not only rings, but like pieces of pie), adjusting to the diameter and/or position of the the pot/pan. Had 25cm diameter. And didn't do that on/off thing. I measured that with an 'E-smog-meter', with multicolor LED-bar :-) And that was an entry level thing, equivalent to the stuff you'd get at Ikea for about 50 to 60 bucks now. Mine was €25. And still working, when I'm back where I lived at the time. | | |
| ▲ | PhotonHunter 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Can you share a link? I’d love to get one. Haven’t found anything like that on the US market. |
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| ▲ | KellyCriterion a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | - only time fire is vastly superior - ....and on a grill/smoker! :-D | |
| ▲ | jedberg 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | They have wok adaptors for induction now, FYI. | | |
| ▲ | kibwen 2 days ago | parent [-] | | They've had wok-compatible induction burners since the very beginning. Induction is huge in China. |
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| ▲ | lightedman 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "I'd wager anyone who opines otherwise in this thread barely cooks or doesn't cook in a serious fashion." I started my taxable life almost 30 years ago in a Chinese kitchen. I'm literally a born-in-the-fire professional cook first and foremost out of any other thing in life I do. Induction rocks, I don't know what your skill issue is. I get pots and pans hotter, way faster than gas, and the temperature control is as fast as the cooking implement can shed the excess heat. That is as fine a degree of control as you can possibly get, the only better thing would be instantaneous temperature and that's basically a thermodynamic impossibility. |
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| ▲ | analog31 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I've cooked every day for 40 years. Before that, I learned to cook at home on an old fashioned electric stove with the coil elements. Sure, the reaction time is slower. You learn to think ahead. Nothing is optimal. The tenements that my kids lived in as students had gas stoves and zero ventilation. That couldn't have been a good idea. Our latest stove is induction, made by LG, with control knobs. I love it. Best thing is it's easier to keep clean. I'm learning to be more reactive about turning the heat up and down, just because I can. Maybe I'll discover what I've been missing all these years. Julia Child wrote that a home cook doesn't have to be a chef. |
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| ▲ | jghn 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Nothing but an open flame gives me the kind of control I need to cook with the precision I do Please explain how an induction cooktop doesn't give you the control and precision you need as compared to gas flame. |
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| ▲ | Zanfa 2 days ago | parent [-] | | To be fair, induction doesn’t heat the sides of the pan at all. So carbon steel pans are more annoying to use and keep uniformly seasoned. Woks don’t really work by default either. It’s also more susceptible to slightly warped pans exacerbating uneven heating. | | |
| ▲ | pkulak 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Heating the absolute hell out of the sides of the pan used to be a disadvantage. That's why everyone moved to crazy-expensive, fully-clad cookware. I like how well cheap, disk-bottomed pans work on induction. But yes, I've also basically given up on carbon steel with induction. Cast iron seasons really well though. | | |
| ▲ | Hikikomori 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Did you try form black rust/magnetite rather than doing typical cast iron seasoning? |
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| ▲ | kevincox 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I consider this a downside. Now whenever I am cooking on a gas stove I keep burning myself because everything in the vicinity of the stove is so hot. I love with induction that I can always grab the handles of the cookware and don't have to worry about stuff nearby on the stove getting hot (example my bowl of pancake batter next to the pan doesn't cook on the near side. You are right about the wok, it isn't quite the same on the induction stove (at least the flat ones, there are wok-shaped ones but these are generally only found in professional units). If you cook most of your meals in it then you are probably right to go gas (or get a gas burner). |
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| ▲ | jedberg 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Many professional cooks who are building new kitchens are doing it with induction. Induction gives you even more precise control, especially since they can put more sensors on the cook surface since it doesn't get as hot. |
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| ▲ | p_j_w 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Some people are just resistant to change and will bitch and moan even if it’s better. Professionals can’t afford to do so. | |
| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Maybe it’s just because the gas stoves I’ve worked with are cheap, but I find them frustrating because their temperature ramps aren’t remotely linear, which can make finding exactly the right setting a pain. |
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| ▲ | foco_tubi 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Tradesmen typically are paid to offset the health effects of their profession, but you get benzene for free. |
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| ▲ | expedition32 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Professional kitchens have way better exhaust than your typical modern apartment. If your kitchen is in your living room (and nowadays they all are) I would definitely switch to induction. | | |
| ▲ | pkulak 2 days ago | parent [-] | | And professional kitchens turn them on! I've literally never seen anyone turn on their range hood while cooking, unless they burn something and are trying to get the smoke alarm to turn off. | | |
| ▲ | ryan_lane 2 days ago | parent [-] | | A lot of range hoods in the US vent back into the house, surprisingly, especially if it's an apartment. IMO it should be code to have them vent outside. |
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| ▲ | DANmode 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It’s not the flame/carcinogens that I’m most worried about personally, but instead the gas. Oh, and I disagree with the fire being more precise than induction etc. It’s just what you’re used to. |
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| ▲ | beej71 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'm a pretty bad cook which probably explains why I never had a problem cooking on any kind of surface. |
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| ▲ | Ekaros 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I don't remember even cast iron electric causing any big issues. Maybe I just don't have skills either... |
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| ▲ | christoph 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Same. I feel I can give a very honest opinion on this as I insisted on a dual fuel hob when we refitted our kitchen 5 years or so ago. The induction rings aren’t a patch on the gas ring for “proper” cooking. There’s simply no competition between them in that regard. Mad for anyone to suggest otherwise. I’d wager you won’t find many commercial kitchens, even at the low/mid end not running some gas rings as well. I’d be amazed if any at the top-end were not using gas rings. The inductions are great for boiling some pasta or veg up fast though! We have a massive outside venting hood overhead as well (which must have been required in UK building regs since at least the 90s?!?) so I really don’t care about indoor “pollution” lol. |
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| ▲ | adrian_b 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You may like more food that is cooked on an open flame, if you like frying or if you like burned crusts, but precision is not the reason. I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients and I have switched years ago from cooking on an open flame to cooking with a microwave oven. Regarding precision, a microwave oven does not have competition. Once I have established a sequence of powers and durations for each power that is appropriate for a certain recipe, the food will always be cooked identically, while freeing me to do other activities instead of handling the food. I still have a gas stove with oven, but I have not opened it again for about 7 years. |
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| ▲ | lokar 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Induction is more precise with better control |
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| ▲ | atrettel 2 days ago | parent [-] | | And induction gets hot immediately. And it is easier to clean. And it is less likely to cause fires. It's just a better technology all around when compared to gas stoves. The only issue I personally have with it is that it is not compatible with all cookware. | | |
| ▲ | kibwen 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Induction also dumps way less waste heat into your house, making it tolerable to exist in a kitchen even with four burners going at once. It also barely heats the cooking surface at all (just whatever heat flows back from the pan), so it's dramatically safer for households with children and the elderly. | |
| ▲ | sieabahlpark 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | tencentshill 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There are imprecise gas ranges, usually cheap units found in apartments. They go from "nothing" to "max" far too quickly. Gas regulators are tricky to do right. Proper ventilation is essential either way. |
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| ▲ | btreecat 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And you'd lose that wager multiple times over |
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| ▲ | Hikikomori 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Induction is as good or better for everything except a wok. |
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| ▲ | jedberg 2 days ago | parent [-] | | They have wok adaptors for induction now. | | |
| ▲ | lightedman 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | There are actual induction units for woks now. They're large but they really get almost the whole wok really hot really fast! I'm assuming there are multiple induction loops inside the unit to be able to make that happen given how deep the wok must sit inside the unit. | |
| ▲ | Hikikomori 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah those exist, meant regular induction cooktop. Still ok for most wok dishes if you cook on batches. Regular gas stoves aren't really powerful enough for proper woking anyway, so an induction wok shaped one might actually be better for most home users. |
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| ▲ | Hikikomori 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | jeffrallen 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [flagged] |
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| ▲ | mint5 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| “Whatever the harmful effects on my health are, that is a trade I make consciously” Technically since it appears the effects are nebulous to you and if consciousness means informed then it seems a conscious decision is not possible |
