Magnetic Pots?

Yes.

It is one of the best!

Much more popular in Europe, but gaining in the US.

Induction cooking works a lot like gas in that it heats the pot very fast (even faster than gas), adjusts temperature rapidly (no thermal lag except for the pan itself), and very little heat is conducted to the stove top. It is also more efficient than a halogen or electric cook top.

Accidentally turning on a burner with no pan present will not heat up the stove surface nor burn your hand (unless you are the terminator).

You must use steel pans. Test your pans with a magnet. If it sticks, it cooks!

Induction Cooking: An Introduction

Very nice link, lyn!

I was wondering about the ailments with iron within is composition... not to talk about the water... many times with iron mixed

Nice link Lyn in your previous - GA goes there

For my own part, with limited experience on induction, I find it a little 'twitchy' compared to ye old visible gas flame - but you are hearing this from someone who has yet to figure out 'microwave nuking'.

But on cookware; I like the enameled cast iron as there can be a lot of unfriendly impurities in many makes.

Mostly I opt for magnetic stainless with a copper or aluminium sandwich as this reduces the 'hot-spot' problem some induction tops seem to have.

Also seems to be less 'twitchy' - maybe because it's less efficient than cast iron - I don't know - perhaps you do?

I have never cooked with an induction cooker.

I know how they work and all and apparently it is the absence of hot spots that makes them desirable. Yes I self googled to check this.

Twitchy temperature control of normal electric cooktops (resistance) is something I dislike but apparently this is not an issue with inductive cookers.

I would love to try one to see for myself though. I haven't seen any at the market here.

If you troll though Lyn's link you will find reference to the pans they are flogging being free of "hot spots" due to sandwich base design.

But yes, as google tells you; induction is far superior to a non flat single thickness pan on a warped element in hot spot terms. Depends what you are accustomed to.

"Twitchy' in the sense they are about as fast as a good gas burner, meaning light-years faster in responding than an element, so adjustments can have radical outcomes if you haven't learned the stove and don't know exactly where the dial should be.

With gas you can look at the flame of a burner you have never met and know the heat.

Scientific study of aluluminum alzheimer link

Seems the link is non existant. OTOH, there are other variables. Some environmental chemicals which will "team up" with molecular aluminum to do the dirty deeds, but by itself, no. Its complicated. And resistant to easy answers.

If you all want me to mark this as off topic because it has nothing to do with heating with induction, I am okay with that.

I just wanted to note that my farrier uses an induction heater to heat his horseshoes up when he shoes my horses. No flame. Nothing to get kicked over into the straw...

I wasn't aware that iron was a metal to be avoided. Doctor prescribes iron tablets frequently as a nutrient supplement, I've never heard of high iron in blood tests only low. I will concede that there must be limits to this. Aluminium on the other hand is generally regarded as a metal to avoid in the diet.

50ppm of dissolved iron in water is drinkable, though one will find that cottons washed in the latest "Zippo" washing powder used with this water will fail the whiter-than-white test.

Excess dissolved aluminium can lead to the onset of Alzheimer's Disease.

Heads or tails?

Almost funny and very well put, I take my iron like a man.......thanks for the heads up!!

I wonder about the future due to having been given Aluminium Hydroxide as a young rating in the RN a lot, DUUUHHHHHH!!! Dyspepsia......

Yes, I guess that a bit of iron and a little electricity on the food wont kill no one! will do that drink mate! cheers!

This has been discussed at length on CR4 several times, look here for a mixed bad of infos and wrong information:-

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/12762#comment250372

I have been using it since 2008 and I recently cooked at a neighbours house with a ceramic hob, I got visibly older while waiting for it to heat up!!!! DREADFULLY SLOW!!!!

Better is gas (our caravan is gas, but we take a portable dual induction hob with use for when we have the mains) and the best of all is induction.....

Do not forget that (as far as I am aware), induction is ONLY for the hob, not for the oven.

The best ovens are Halogen ones......if only I had seen them before buying our oven!!!!!

The plus for Induction is you can buy one for around US$50 or so, just to try it out. See if you like it or not....

That's what I did as my wife is un-modern in many things, she went for it immediately!!!!

We are the only people that I know of with no visible Hob when its not in use as it lives in a drawer.....

I hope this helps further....do read the other blogs on CR4.

"Hob" sent me to the dictionary.

Sorry, what is the common word in your area?

Please don't be sorry. That's one of the things I like about this forum. I have been exposed to more cultures and languages than I ever would have had I not joined.

I refer to it as a cook top, but then, I'm just a hick from Arkansas.

That's a good name, I will try to remember to use it, less open to misunderstanding than "Hob" I feel....THANKS!

Isn't a hob a nail in a boot?

First I ever heard it used to cook food. But apparently is an un-common but legitimate term here in Canada. Electric range tops call the hot spots "elements" here. Natural gas ranges often have several burners. I guess you could call those burners "hobs". They do sort of stick up out of the surface of the range like studs on a boot. I asked the appliance guy down at Bxxxx Plumbing what he called them. He said that a cook top has elements which are buried in glass, and the range usually includes an integral oven. That he never heard of a cook top run by propane or natural gas.

He thought a hob was a boot nail as well.

We decided to go for coffee .... We grabbed our touques, put a two four in the trunk, and went to Timmies. It was crowded, so we headed over to the cafe, which had a chesterfield to doss out on. But when he went to sit down, he spilled his double double and had to get a serviette to clean up. Last time that happened was when he got square tires in the cold and hit the black ice at the end of his driveway, ha! shoulda see it!. Fortunately his block heater was working that day, or he would never have got it to kick over! Fortuantely, we all warmed up later that day with beaver tails and poutine down by the canal.

I looked it up in the online Oxford English Dictionary and found the following:-

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hobnail noun

1. a short heavy-headed nail used to reinforce the soles of boots.
2. a blunt projection, especially in cut or moulded glassware.
[mass noun] glass decorated with blunt projections.

Derivatives hobnailed adjective

Origin: late 16th century: from hob1 + nail
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hob noun

1. British a cooking appliance, or the flat top part of a cooker, with hotplates or burners.
a flat metal shelf at the side of a fireplace, having its surface level with the top of the grate and used especially for heating pans.

2. a machine tool used for cutting gears or screw threads.

3. a peg or pin used as a mark in throwing games.

Origin: late 16th century (in hob1 (sense 3)): alteration of hub. hob1 (sense 1), 'metal shelf by a fireplace', dates from the late 17th century

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The word for the nail is Hobnail, not Hob nail........so it should be relatively easy to keep them separate I feel.

When I post here on CR4 now, after talking with Lyn who also did not know the word till he looked it up, I use "cook top", that should please everyone I feel and be very easy to understand.....is that OK with you?

All good English dictionaries should have a correct description for the word.

Have a great day.

So, a Hob Nail is a device to secure a Hob to the countertop so you boil water for shoe leather soup (with extra iron supplement from the hobnails).

HOBbling humour is still humour I suppose.......

:-;

I found a few more CR4 links:-

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/10067

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/9201#comment85892

Of all residential ovens, electric does the best job.

That does not mean there are not some bad electric ovens out there.

If you have read the blogs I previously mentioned, you will know this already, but we wanted to buy a built in hob, till we saw exactly what they cost, around €4,500 in Germany at the time for a good make.There was no way I was giving out so much money.

We went for the portable units, you can buy a lot and still never spend €4,500, even if they go wrong say every 2 years (which they don't, some are now 5 years old!). We had one once replaced that never worked from new.

The portable ones have their own drawer when not in use leaving the top free. They also go camping with us......For me portable is cheaper and better.#If one goes wrong out of guarantee, it goes in the trash.

I predict that in 10 years, they will replace almost everything else, when the price has dropped. Except for where no power is available, there gas/coal/wood is best.

Last October we rented an apartment in Paris which turned out to be equipped with a magnetic induction range. It worked quite well. It heated up what appeared to be ordinary pots very rapidly, cleanly and without getting hot itself. The range had four circular heating areas in a smooth surface, much like ceramic electric ranges I have seen in the US.

I have no idea of efficiency, reliability or installation cost; we were there only two weeks.

The efficiency is often quote as being many times better than ranges with either gas of electricity as basically nothing other than the pot, gets heated. Not wasted in the air or the hob itself.

This is of particular benefit in a hot summer when normal cooking can be a drag with vast quantities of heat being released into the surrounding air......

Even the hob top surface only gets slightly warm from contact with the pot.....after frying, uncomfortable to hold your hand on, but no burns as a result, great if you have kids in the house.

Oil or fat CANNOT start burning, because the hob switches off before it gets to such a temperature. No other system can do this!!!!

The heat is distributed far more evenly, stopping charring of the food on the base in localized hot spots, though it is still possible to burn food (across the whole base) if you aren't careful, with either control or stirring!!

Needed heat is available in large quantity. Also, the pots heat up VERY fast, if you want speed and control, there is nothing better. Many top Chefs have converted over the last few years from gas....

If I can assist further, just ask.

Aluminum cookware is pretty safe because when exposed to air, an oxide coating forms over the aluminum, shielding food from the aluminum. A well seasoned cast iron pan or pot is the best cookware around. Not only is it the least expensive , but it has been around forever. CI cookware is often handed down from one generation to the next. Fancy cookware that costs in the hundreds, are more for decoration in home kitchens open to the family area to impress guests. I go by what commercial kitchens use and that is CI or aluminum.

It works like this

There are two mechanisms of heating it seems.

Resistive heating from the coupled current (HF) into any metallic vessel and magnetic hysterisis that only heats ferrous vessels.

The frequency of operation favours magnetic hysterisis however at higher frequencies any metal would heat.

Apparently the clever folk in Japan are "working on" inductance cookers that will do all metals, coming to an appliance store near you soon.

Inductive heating of (all) metals in industrial applications has been around for while.

If you place a disc of steel on the hob it will heat up and you can then place any cooking vessel (that doesn't melt at cooking temperatures) on it and cook as you would with any iron topped stove.

I'll wait until the higher frequency units are commonly available for the kitchen before buying one I think. I have a collection of pans spanning 3 generations of accumulation that I don't want to replace with all ferrous. Yes i have some lovely CI pans but all my saucepans are SS and there a few buckled and buggered Al pans that work a treat (predictably for certain dishes) that I want to keep using.

I cook with propane and charcoal. Microwave oven is just for reheating and precooking spuds before frying.

Safety concerns......non ionising radiation must be pouring out. No worse than being near any RF source eg the Sun....

Has anyone here messed around with a spectrum analyser around one?

Some of the stainless pans may actually work, most of mine are stainless. Only a magnet can tell you if they will work or not. Test on the base.

Some aluminium pans will also work if they were made for induction as well....

My SS pans were NOT expensive. Nor were my CI pans.

I don't care if the pans are free, I just don't want the hassle of thinking about replacement.

If one could find a combination gas/induction cooktop, wouldn't that be sweet?

I hope the cooktop czars are reading this.

That is what we had during our 1 year test period. We were lucky, our pans were fine.

Is good to know that there are so much to say about pots! for sure we can´t live without them... unless one is in that mood of eating raw and cold food (that can give tremendous indigestions)! but as I can see the conversation is turning from pots to pans... I lost the line somewere!