Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Dave,

I have a 1" thick granite slab I was planning to use as a surface.

And yeah, I know it won't be hot like a premium stove. In the summer I can get an outdoor burner (or a raku kiln!). The house has gas, so the landlord is willing to talk about splitting the cost of installing a gas stove, I just won't want to seriously address that for several months to a year, given moving expenses.

Besides, the Itawani is only like $80. So if it's disappointing, I'm not out much.

Now ... another important question ... where does one dispose of those butane cannisters? Presumably I can't just throw them in the trash ...

Pete,

Do induction stoves turn on and off "instantly"? That's my main issue with electric resistance stoves; the long heat-up and cool-down times.

I'm not pete, but have used induction a fair bit (last night in fact...). They are actually more responsive then gas, because there are no heavy grates keeping warm. They are pretty much the most responsive, and efficient, possible.

Pete, Paul, etc.:

Can anyone recommend a brand of portable induction burner? 120v.

I have the Burton 6000 1800w burner, which I bring out when I turn on my AC every year. This thing actually boils a gallon of water faster than my 20k burners, unless I turn them up to the max, and flames are coming up the sides of the kettle! And response is instant - the whistling stops immediately, while the cast iron grates keep the boiling going, unless it is moved. I cook most of my summer dishes on that burner, to avoid heating up my kitchen. The lowest heat works great for a low simmer - heat levels 1 and 2 cycle on and off, while 3-10 stay the same constantly.

We have the same one as Dave, probably from his recommendation.

I'm not sure ours has the same active area as it originally did; it implies an outer coil of 9" but we seem only to have the inner 5" coil active. Other reviews on Amazon seem to agree. It's still fast enough on high heat.

Downsides:
(1) There's too big a gap between settings at the low end of the scale and not enough at the high end. 1 is too low for a good summer but 2 boils, 3 is a good medium heat. I've never had to discern between 9 and 10. They both seem pretty much full on.
(2) It will get cast iron very hot but then the thermal protection takes over and it shuts down before you can finish.
(3) The temperature mode doesn't seem to correlate well. Things boil at "180".
(4) Amazon's current price is twice what we paid in 2012. I'm not sure it's as good a burner at $150 as it was at $75.

I'm on my third portable induction burner. First one died after about 3 years. It was cheap, unknown brand, no longer available. It's temperature regulation at lower powers was kind awful, pulsed on and off *hard*, you could watch pan boil on and off. No good for delicate stuff at all. Second one was cheap and just pissed me off. A little better for delicate stuff (but only a little), but that thing went into thermal shutdown if you looked at it wrong. It could get hot, but never stayed there. Also, I use it quite a bit for pressure cooking, and adjustment was way too coarse to hit the right temp. When the kitchen was being renovated this year, I bought a Vollrath Mirage Pro. Pretty close to perfect in all ways, but waaaaaay more expensive. I think the quality of these things is all over the map, good return policy would be my main criteria. A good one is quite nice to use, though.

Thanks, folks!

I'll hold off on actually buying anything until I get there of course.

Which is when?

If you just want to smack things up with heat, and not do anything delicate, just get a high power one with good reviews, looking out for reports of shutdown. If you want to be more delicate stuff, the deal is that basically units have a few levels of power, and then a bunch of levels 'in between' which cycles it on and off. A fairly typical one will have, say, 15 user selectable levels. It will actually have 3 power levels, and then cycle the power on and off at one of those three levels for each of the 15. Really disastrous ones, from a UX point of view, will make you select the power level and then the sub level (my first one was like this). Newer ones mostly hide the power level part. Pro-level ones typically have a fully adjustable power level, no 'sub-levels'. Now, considering how many of these are made and progressions in making shit cheap, really all of them should be fully adjustable now (no cycling), and it wouldn't surprise me to see that in the near future, if consumers ever notice or care. My first one cycled so hard, and the lowest power level was too high, it would actually burn/stick something when it cycled on. It would make a butter sauce separate. The newer one was better in this regard. The Vollrath is great, but is over priced, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you have very specific requirements, more love then healthy for engineering, or perhaps use it all the time. Amazon reviews are often pretty good here, lots of more discerning users then one might expect.