Disagree. Induction is as good or better than gas in the ways that matter: great control and responsiveness, high power, super easy to clean, etc. And I’m also not burning hydrocarbons in my home.
A while back I weighed the options and I couldn’t be happier having gone with induction.
I disliked it every time I tried it, but maybe the quality was just poor. The three qualities you point out are my complaints about them. Not responsive, low power, hard to clean.
I don’t know how to reconcile my experience with what people are claiming…
My stove has 8-9 power levels ranging from basically warming all the way to a high powered boost mode that’ll get a saucepan boiling in 2 minutes flat and faster than any gas stove I’ve used. Some models have even finer gradations but mine is sufficient for my needs.
Temperature changes are near-instaneous since the stove is directly heating the cookware just like gas, there’s just a short pause as the power level adjusts (e.g. when going from a boil to a simmer).
Because the cooktop stays relatively cool compared to a traditional coil electric stove, messes are just a matter of wiping things up. Things never cook on. In this respect it’s actually better than gas since there’s no burners to clean. About the only issue is potentially scratching the ceramic.
And on top of that, I never have to worry about a cookware handle accidentally being heated by a flame and burning my hand, or an ignitor failing. Having worked with gas in the past I genuinely only see downsides compared to a modern induction unit.
As I mentioned, maybe it was lower quality ones than yours. I mostly only encounter them in AirBnBs and it’s been a few years.
I’ve had issues cooking shrimps at high temperatures as the stove wouldn’t stay in high power mode. Temperature needs to ramp up or down, which is not the case for gas.
For cleaning, the surface becomes hotter then electric coil stoves or gas since on those cases the surface isn’t in contact with anything hot. I’ve found that the glasstop gets stained or scratched super easily and you have to be super careful in how you clean it.
I do have to agree with your final points, but here’s an advantage to compensate: you can cook in the event of a power cut.
Sounds like crappy stoves to me. I’ve never had issues with power and it certainly doesn’t “ramp up or down”.
Well, okay, I have, in that I had to get used to the dang thing being more powerful than I was used to.
I will say, induction has the issue of needing to roughly center the cookware on the burner as they have sensors that’ll turn off the burner if cookware isn’t detected after a certain amount of time. But that’s just a matter of familiarity and practice, it’s rarely a problem for me now that I’m used to it, and the stove gives me an audible alarm if I screw it up.
As for cleaning, I previously had a ceramic top electric coil stove and it was objectively worse, and both of them were better than old style coil stoves with those horrible burner cavities you have to clean out.
As for a power cut, I live in a place that’s lost power twice in the past… five years? It’s not a concern for me, though everyone’s circumstances are different.
I hate glasstops stoves and nothing beats cooking with gas.
There’s a reason we have hoods.
Disagree. Induction is as good or better than gas in the ways that matter: great control and responsiveness, high power, super easy to clean, etc. And I’m also not burning hydrocarbons in my home.
A while back I weighed the options and I couldn’t be happier having gone with induction.
I disliked it every time I tried it, but maybe the quality was just poor. The three qualities you point out are my complaints about them. Not responsive, low power, hard to clean.
I don’t know how to reconcile my experience with what people are claiming…
Are you thinking of plain glasstop stoves? Those are just coil stoves with a layer of glass on top.
Induction stoves are the ones where the surface stays cold.
Glasstops are as you describe.
Honestly that’s… kinda wild to me.
My stove has 8-9 power levels ranging from basically warming all the way to a high powered boost mode that’ll get a saucepan boiling in 2 minutes flat and faster than any gas stove I’ve used. Some models have even finer gradations but mine is sufficient for my needs.
Temperature changes are near-instaneous since the stove is directly heating the cookware just like gas, there’s just a short pause as the power level adjusts (e.g. when going from a boil to a simmer).
Because the cooktop stays relatively cool compared to a traditional coil electric stove, messes are just a matter of wiping things up. Things never cook on. In this respect it’s actually better than gas since there’s no burners to clean. About the only issue is potentially scratching the ceramic.
And on top of that, I never have to worry about a cookware handle accidentally being heated by a flame and burning my hand, or an ignitor failing. Having worked with gas in the past I genuinely only see downsides compared to a modern induction unit.
As I mentioned, maybe it was lower quality ones than yours. I mostly only encounter them in AirBnBs and it’s been a few years.
I’ve had issues cooking shrimps at high temperatures as the stove wouldn’t stay in high power mode. Temperature needs to ramp up or down, which is not the case for gas.
For cleaning, the surface becomes hotter then electric coil stoves or gas since on those cases the surface isn’t in contact with anything hot. I’ve found that the glasstop gets stained or scratched super easily and you have to be super careful in how you clean it.
I do have to agree with your final points, but here’s an advantage to compensate: you can cook in the event of a power cut.
Sounds like crappy stoves to me. I’ve never had issues with power and it certainly doesn’t “ramp up or down”.
Well, okay, I have, in that I had to get used to the dang thing being more powerful than I was used to.
I will say, induction has the issue of needing to roughly center the cookware on the burner as they have sensors that’ll turn off the burner if cookware isn’t detected after a certain amount of time. But that’s just a matter of familiarity and practice, it’s rarely a problem for me now that I’m used to it, and the stove gives me an audible alarm if I screw it up.
As for cleaning, I previously had a ceramic top electric coil stove and it was objectively worse, and both of them were better than old style coil stoves with those horrible burner cavities you have to clean out.
As for a power cut, I live in a place that’s lost power twice in the past… five years? It’s not a concern for me, though everyone’s circumstances are different.
This is your brain on benzene.
I wish, I’m too poor for either gas or induction.