Howdy, Y'all know I am old, 75, but still love to cook, not as much as FIDO, but some. So I am on Outdoors and read something about a guy using Induction Cooking. What up??? What is the deal, you cannot just cook on gas? What makes this so special and or so good? Checked what he was using, a $1,500 Brevillie, and NO WAY. Amazon has these things for less than a $100. Why do I want one, why should I have one, what would I cook on it, what is so special you need one. As stated, I am an old, so much new stuff is beyond me. Thanks!

Induction cooking has been around for at long long time, it's not new, just the marketing is new. Outside of boiling water faster, and then much more instant temp control, not much to it. I much prefer gas to anything else, and once you have your fire control figured out, you are just as good or better. No need to go down this rabbit hole imo, but i'm sure there are induction fanboys like everything else, including gas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_cooking

You can read all you care to on the "tech" here.

If I understand it correctly, the stovetop itself does not get hot.

For someone like me who occasionally leaves something staying on the burner and melts or destroys it, that could be a big advantage.

The disadvantage would be that it won't work with my most used pots. I mostly use the old Visions cookware.

We don't have gas in our home, only electric, so we use induction. When we first moved into our house, we had a stove top that had both electric and induction burners. We only used the induction burners, they were so much better IMO than the electric burners. When we replaced our stove top about 2-3 years ago, we went with all induction.

One of the downsides to induction is, only certain pans work with it. For example, cast iron, stainless steel, carbon steel, etc. work fine on induction but other materials like aluminum do not.

I would probably slightly prefer gas, but only because I miss traditional wok cooking (there are induction woks but just aren't as good). Otherwise, pans heat up really fast. Boiling water is probably the area where induction really shines more than anything else out there.

smstork1007 said:

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Induction cooking has been around for at long long time, it's not new, just the marketing is new. Outside of boiling water faster, and then much more instant temp control, not much to it. I much prefer gas to anything else, and once you have your fire control figured out, you are just as good or better. No need to go down this rabbit hole imo, but i'm sure there are induction fanboys like everything else, including gas.

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I wonder what could be the reason for the recent marketing push.....

Here are what I see as the major advantages of induction:

1) MORE POWER: An above-average gas top big burner will give you about 15,000 BTU's - a large induction burner should give you around 28,000. That essentially halves the amount of time it takes to boil a pot of water and just as importantly return your pot to a boil after adding what you are putting in it. Side add-on induction burners might not give you this power.

2) MORE EFFICIENCY: 80% of the energy created by a gas top stove is lost into the air. 90% of the energy created by an induction top goes to cooking your food. Remember, an induction stove heats your pot, not the surface of the cookstop. (This also means that you aren't pouring tons of heat into the air during our lovely TX summers which keeps your house much cooler during cooking.)

3) MORE ACCURACY: Induction is automatic on/off just like a gas cooktop and also the instant range of heat - it allows you to have very small amounts of consistent heat as well (i.e. you can cook chocolate or an egg-based sauce without using a double boiler).

That being said, induction cooktops vary in quality/power just like gas cooktops do and you generally get what you pay for. Hence, the expensive Breville vs. the $100 cheapo. If you already have the pots/pans that work for induction you are most of the way there.

Major downsides: required non-aluminum pots/pans; retrofitting existing wiring to be able to handle power requirements of a good induction cooktop