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Does anyone use induction burners? Looking for recommendations. (self.food)

submitted 1 year ago by Butterbee to c/food

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I'm looking at buying an induction burner but it's hard to find which brands may be reliable. Most of the youtube reviews are done by review bot channels and relying on amazon reviews in this day and age... yeah. So does anyone have any experience with these and know of a brand that I can go toward?

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[–] agegamon 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I have this one.

Six months in with daily use and no issues, it was recommended by a couple sites in my research. So was the Ikea one. I bought it to validate my decision to switch to an induction hob in the next 3-4 years, and I'm completely sold in spite of a few hiccups.

Pros:

Super easy to use
Does not instantly shut off when lifting away a pan (there is a grace period and it resumes when a pan is detected)
Super easy to clean
Can be moved anywhere with a plug and taken to events or potlucks
Boils water about 3x faster than my gas stove
Don't need to constantly run vent fan
Doesn't heat up kitchen while running
Works extremely well with my old cast iron pans and dutch oven
Has a keep-warm mode and timer that runs up to several hours

Cons:

The heating area is smaller than it appears, not as large as the largest circle that they printed on the top but bigger than the smaller one. With cast iron or thick-bottomed pots this isn't an issue as the heat spreads, but with thinner pans there's a noticeable cold ring around the outside. Not important for boiling, which is about 60% of my use-case lol
Obviously can't be used with non-magnetic pans, so all my cheap aluminum stuff stays dusty over on on the gas stove
(US-specific) max power and boil functions can only be used for short periods of time unless your kitchen has 20-amp circuits (mine does but some don't)
The temp control function is iffy. I find it mostly not useful compared to "regular" 1-10 stove control.
Personally my biggest pet peeve, which is a little silly, is that the cord is very thick and difficult to deal with. I know it needs to be this way to handle the current, but it's still annoying. Currently using about 5 rubber bands keeping it tidy. On the balance, when I take it somewhere I appreciate it being longer so that it can reach floor outlets or be out on a counter.

[–] Butterbee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the well thought out response! I was looking at that one. How granular is the temperature at low temps? Will it keep something nicely at below the boiling point?

[–] agegamon 2 points 1 year ago

No prob! So, down at the lower levels (power settings 0.5-4.5, or below about 200F) it seems to switch to "pulsing" the burner. I think a lot of induction hobs do that... With anything that has some mass to it, this one can steadily keep it below boiling. My ikea kettle is pretty thin, sometimes it boils/hisses for just a split second even in keep-warm mode. Every other pot or cast iron I've used have enough mass that they don't do that.

I think the temp control mode actually works better at low temps (but only if the pan is already hot*). I'll either use the "keep warm" button and bump it up to 180f or just set my own timer.

*Something I noticed about most induction plates/hobs is that when you try to do temp control but have a cold pan, they just blast 100% power until the pan heats up. It's probably fine but sometimes overshoots. The "regular number" mode (which I use like 95% of the time) doesn't do that, it just does puts out whatever power you select