Tim Streater wrote:

Specifically, in what way are they "better"?

As far as I can tell, because the heat is generated directly in the
bottom of your pan, rather than in the hob and then transferred by
conduction to the pan. So things should heat more quickly, as less heat
is wasted by never going into the pan. Also, when you remove the power,
you haven't had to heat the hob up, so that heat is not wasted either.

In principle the hob is not hot at all, although it's gonna get some
heat from the bottom of the pan being heated.

Yep, all that.

Plus:

* Lower "simmer" level than gas available which has to have a minimum
flame size

* Waaaaay faster than gas (due to what Tim said) at heating up. Instead
of heating water in the kettle to boil something, you just put cold in
the pan and turn it on. My demo to people was to out-boil my 3kW kettle.
(The efficiency must be close to 100%. Be interesting to know how
efficient a gas hob is with all that heat wafting up the sides.)

* None of that silly thermal inertia you get with ceramic hobs (they're
like nuclear power plants - turn 'em off and they're still hot a month
later!)

* You get a flat surface you can put things on, unlike the balancing act
of putting anything (even pans!) on the gas surrounds.

* A hob surface that, when you've finished using it, isn't sun surface
temp hot (as Tim says.) Ok, it's the same temp as the bottom of the pan
but it's not going to start setting fire to tea towels that get lobbed
on there.


The only downsides is the ferrous pan thing, but thicker/heavier pans
are better for frying & cooking than thin ally ones anyway.


I've not seen one of these in action, so I've no idea whether the fact
that it "ought to be better" actually makes it so.

In my dull engineery way I'd show it off to people occasionally and, on
the back of it, two friends and a next door neighbour all went and got
induction hobs when they re-did their kitchens. One friend then showed
his mum & dad and /they/ got one for their new kitchen.

I should be on commission!

You won't go and buy one of course because this reads like a bloody
evangelical conversion!

The peverse thing was that, before buying one, all the things I read
about induction hobs (chiefly on Usenet!) sounded the same - people
having orgasms about a heating device. Ludicrous.

But, for me, buying an induction hob was a toss up between having to
redo a 10+m run of underfloor gas pipe with 28mm (and a load of
channelling in a kitchen I didn't want to pull apart) and putting up
with a standard ceramic hob. I took a chance on the induction hob (from
eBay, just to compound the risk) and it really is a complete Damascine
conversion.

I laugh at your gas hobs; I poke fun at your halogen hobs; induction
really is cooking Nirvana.

--
Scott

Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?