Induction is the good one - it has instant response like gas.

Resistive electric stoves suck and deserve their reputation, but induction is the best of both worlds: high power, accurate control, and you don't waste half of the energy due to the flame's heat going around the pot.

But the touch-sensitive controls are infuriating indeed. Nothing about induction requires them, it's just a dumb design fad.

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cassianoleal 2 days ago | parent [-]

Induction is shit. Horrible stuff. Not nearly the same level of control and heat dissipation as gas. Much better than resistive, but about 10% as good as gas.

Where it has a clear advantage is in boiling speed when used at full power. I've ditched my electric kettle for a stovetop one. There's not a day I'm cooking that I don't somewhat regret having replaced the old and crappy gas stove.

Even with very thick cast iron pans, the hot spots are there at any power. It takes longer for the pans to heat up and the heat is never uniform.

For pots with thinner floors, I bought thick heat diffusers. Again, they help - but they just make everything less responsive and probably a lot less efficient as well. Not to mention they don't actually make the hot spots disappear either.

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plqbfbv a day ago | parent | next [-]

I have stainless steel and anti-stick pans from a high end brand, and with one of the cheapest induction stoves a liter of water boils in literally 2m, compared to 10m+ of gas.

Cast iron pots have additional challenges unless they're designed for induction (flat bottom surface), and even then, due to the high thermal capacity they are basically bad heat conductors, so if you put a large cast iron pot on a small induction coil, the center will heat rapidly, but it'll take a long time for the whole pan to heat up. Your only option is to make sure bottom-pot size and coil size are matching, and even then it'll take a while longer to heat compared to stainless steel or copper.

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cassianoleal a day ago | parent [-]

I did say it's excellent at boiling water, didn't I? Everything else is horrible.

In terms of cast iron, even if I leave it to heat for over 20 minutes, the hot spot is still there.

	▲	plqbfbv a day ago \| parent [-]
		> I did say it's excellent at boiling water, didn't I? Indeed, sorry, long workday :)

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grandma_tea 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Have you ruled out the possibility that you have a bad stove?

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cassianoleal 2 days ago | parent [-]

It depends on what you call bad. It's certainly not top of the line, thousands of pounds worth, but it's not a cheap one either. Honestly it's my first induction one, so who knows?

It's a Belling Cookcentre 100Ei [0].

[0] https://www.belling.co.uk/en-gb/cookcentre-100ei-range

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lancewiggs 2 days ago | parent [-]

That appears to have poor feedback about the induction cooktop itself, and is inferior to, say, Bosch. Cycles on and off, poor pan detection, lower peak power, areas being affected smaller than the lines on the top etc.

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cassianoleal 2 days ago | parent [-]

Perhaps. Again, I'm kinda new to this, and that one had stellar reviews, was well within my budget and with a good discount when I bought it, and mainly - it fit the hole I needed to fill in my kitchen.

Do you know of a better one that doesn't completely break the bank but works well? I was looking at the ones that the whole cook surface is inductive and it adapts to exactly where the pots and pans are, but they seem to cost an arm and a leg, especially in that form factor.

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rsynnott 2 days ago | parent [-]

My general impression of those big wide single-unit range things is that unless you're paying _silly_ money, you're getting a far worse product for the same money than normal separate cooktops and ovens. No idea _why_ this is, but it seems to be a universal.

(Part of the problem may be that BSH, which kinds of sets the standard in the industry, doesn't really make them, so the competition dynamic is different.)

	▲	cassianoleal a day ago \| parent [-]
		Is there a way to fill the 100 cm hole in the worktop with a split solution? Otherwise I'd have to replace the cupboards and a massive chunk of granite, which would likely be even sillier money...