Induction hob and old brass pan

[The Natural Philosopher]

impact.

[Dave Liquorice]

Bet they don't thump out the 5kW+ (for small one) that a proper gas wok burner does...

Forced air charcoal is (was...) the normal source of heat for a wok in China. Serious heat...

[polygonum]

And a knee controller on the gas ones, at least.

No - some are 3kW.

[Dave Liquorice]

They vary greatly, a google about found (commercial) gas wok burners with up to 60,000 btu output, that's 17 kW or there abouts. I agree that a domestic one isn't going to be much more tha 5 kW if that.

[dennis]

They may give out 5kW but a lot of it goes up the sides and out the extractor.

[Dave Liquorice]

Solid metal ones, huge thermal inertia couple that with a pan with a hig h thermal inertia is just asking for trouble unless you are happy to wait

for half an hour for things to warm up or can accurately guess when to knock the setting down to avoid a massive overshoot.

Ceramic hobs also have some thermal inertia but not quite as bad as a solid plate. Big snag with a ceramic hob is that it get fking hot, so an y spills almost instantly burn. Do ceramic hobs still come with a supplied scraper? As others have said heavy pans and ceramic hobs are a bit of an accident waiting to happen. Not so much the ordinary, controlled, puttin g down but when a pan slips in the grip for some reason and drops onto the hob...

I've only got a cheapy portable single pan 2 kW induction hob (£25 Lid l) but I'm sold on it over any other form of electric hob cooking.

[polygonum]

Sorry - think I confused in my previous - the domestic induction one I found a spec. for was 3kW. Yep - have seen figures in the 15-17 range for gas wok burners. That is a lot of heat going into a few bean sprouts. :-)

[Alexander Lamaison]

To my untrained eye, ceramic and induction hobs both look like a flat sheet of glass. Don't induction hobs shatter in the same way with a heavy pan?

Alex

[polygonum]

I used the word ceramic to cover all hobs which have a sheet of ceramic as their top layer - regardless of the technology used to make pans sitting on top get hot. So yes, that would include induction hobs (unless there are any which are non-ceramic topped?)

[Alexander Lamaison]

So, just to get this clear:

- Solid metal hob take too long to warm them up

- Non-induction ceramic take too long and shatter

- Induction shatter

That means cast iron pans are only any good with gas? Surely not.

Alex

[polygonum]

You are missing Agas and their brethren.

They actually work fine on solid metal plates within the restrictions of being slow and staying hot for ages. Experience does help - eventually!

But for us, their sheer weight is an overriding problem - partner has illness issues that restrict her ability to pick up heavy things. So stainless (and as mentioned earlier, they do have aluminium or whatever layers on the base) was the only viable choice.

[Huge]

But it still isn't as good as gas at simmering. But I bring stuff to the boil on it all the time.

[Dave Liquorice]

I use it in preference to the solid hot plate cooke, even though it take s up 1/3 of the total work surafce in the kitchen and doesn't live their either. I generally use the "power level" settings and find 1 is about right for a simmer. I haven't really played with the "pan temperature" mode but I suspect that 100C (the default is 120C) and a higher power level would give a very even gentle simmer.

[Antonio B]

replying to GB, Antonio B wrote: Thanks for that. I gave it a try but, the jam seems to be stratified with the sugar centrifuged to a pellet at the bottom of the pan and the liquid suspension at the top. There is also a layer of condensed lead that may have vaporised from the brass pan as it heated up during the reverse spin cycle. Do you have any recommendations for a bench top sonicator to resuspend the fruit pulp? Sorry for the late reply, the spinning pan created some high frequency EM radio waves which played hell with my WiFi router, so only back online now