Since March, stovetop cooking hasn’t sounded the same in our kitchen. Instead of the click-click-click-poof of a gas burner igniting, turning recipe ingredients in a pan or pot into a meal begins with the beeps of buttons on a touch-sensitive display and then the pulsing buzz of an induction coil.
Replacing the gas range that had come with our house when we moved in 20 years ago, and which had become increasingly iffy about having two of its burners light, was an unquestionable part of finally getting the kitchen redone. Getting an induction range did not seem as obvious until some contemplation about how we’d want to end the need to burn fossil fuels in the house every day1 and learning more about the health risks of gas burners in unventilated kitchens.
Five months into cooking with the Bosch induction range2 we picked out, several impressions stand out:
- The cooking surfaces really do heat up quickly–I almost botched one of the first pots of rice I cooked when I didn’t realize the water was already boiling. If you cook pasta with any regularity, an induction cooktop is your new friend.
- Induction surfaces are also responsive in a way no gas burner is, almost immediately cooling down when you turn down or turn off the heat. They also let you keep a pan on minimal heat without worrying about gas flames blowing out.
- That buzzing noise can sound weird, especially when it’s louder with particular pieces of cookware for reasons that I have yet to figure out. On the other hand, I’ve decided that I like the beeps the touch controls make as I tap them; the experience feels a little like cooking on the bridge of NCC-1701-D.
- Not every pot or pan heats up as quickly. The All-Clad stainless-steel cookware we got with our wedding works great, as does the Wirecutter-endorsed nonstick pan we bought to replace one that wasn’t induction compatible (determined by a magnet not sticking to its underside). But the griddle pan we bought to retire another induction-incompatible model takes longer to heat up than I’d like.
- Because the cooktop is so smooth, a pot or pan will spin around or slide away from the induction element very easily. That unbroken surface, however, is also super-easy to clean.
- As you might expect with any stove swap, it takes some time to adjust muscle memory for one range’s output for another’s, which can be a issue for particularly temperature-sensitive recipes.
- The embedded electronics in an induction cooktop may make fussy moments possible, and I may have seen one happen after our kid left the oven on for too long after baking cookies. That apparently heated up the cooktop enough for it to balk at turning on a cooktop coil for a few minutes.
After those five months, I not only don’t miss cooking with gas but have been reminded of what I don’t miss when I’ve used other people’s gas stovetops where some burners don’t light up reliably. But it’s also easy for me to say that when we still have a gas grill on the back patio for the not-everyday experience of cooking with fire.
- Replacing the 2018-vintage gas furnace and water heater with more efficient heat-pump units will be a task for another year. ↩︎
- Yes, that is an expensive piece of hardware. And well worth it considering all of the time I spend in the kitchen! ↩︎
https://robpegoraro.com/2024/08/16/home-on-the-induction-range/
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