Ed P
TVWBB Platinum Member
My wife watches many cooking shows. On one of them, there was a master chef in charge of a large institutional kitchen, with many people working in it. They had induction cooktops and he remarked how much cooler the kitchen operated with them. As a demo, he took a frozen pan straight out of the freezer and brought it to cooking temperature in seconds. It was quite impressive.Wife was just dead set on gas burners.
She grew up cooking on gas, all of our prior homes were gas, so her new kitchen had to be gas and that was pretty much the end of the discussion. Current house was all electric so I had to run gas piping in the home, underground, and contract for a tank just for the burners on the range.
Not sure the offerings available for induction ranges. Her Wolf range is 8 burners with dual electric ovens ("dual fuel" as they refer to it).
One of my customers had us install an induction cooktop at their home I constructed. At the walk thru, they brought a proper pan and filled it with water. Was like magic how responsive the induction cooktop was! No heat on the "burner" surface, smooth surface for easy cleaning, etc. Honestly, I am surprised my company isn't installing these as standard.
There are rebates from the federal government for installing these as well. I don't see a downside, other than requiring compatible cookware, but maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture. My neighbor has a pacemaker...I would imagine you shouldn't be around induction while wearing a pacemaker.
Using Amazon as a reference, there are Chinese single burner induction hot plates that can be had for less than $50, and 4- and 5-burner ranges for less than $500. Most of them seem to have a 4+ star rating.