Another Induction Post

18 years ago

First I am a newbie, on this forum anyway, so don't throw me under the bus :). I am planning to do a kitchen remodel and was steered to these forums for great expert advise.

I was totally going in the 36" gas rangetop direction, (Wolf unsealed) and then saw induction demonstrated and it really piqued my curiosity.

I have read pretty much all of the posts online when searching about induction. I did have another question though that I did not see an answer.

1) I see that if you did a 36" induction cooktop you can get for example one 12" element and then there are smaller elements. With induction is only the part of the pan that is over the actual element heated or will the whole pan actually heat up regardless of the element size? For example putting a 10" pan on a 8" element, will only the 8" part get hot or the whole 10" bottom? Also, does this depend on the pan? I figure cast iron would heat the whole pan regardless but what do I know.

On looks, I would be sold if they made an induction rangetop. Like the Wolf rangetop but with induction and the knobs on the front so you can fit 6 elements. That would be cool. I love the rangetop look.

Another plus for the induction side, that I didn't see posted, would be clean pot outside bottoms since there wouldn't be any possible scorching from gas.

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Comments (2)

plllog
18 years ago
Like you, I was thinking Wolf rangetop before I learned about induction here. I don't have a cooktop yet, but I bought a cheap portable unit to try out. On that, there is a definite hot round in the center of a pot that is bigger than the element, but the rest of a cast iron pot does get warm. Not as hot, however, as the middle. I scorched once when I first got it because I didn't realize how powerful it was :) The scorch was a perfect circle. I'm not in the habit of scorching pots, but I think the behavior (center is where the bulk of the heat is) is pretty similar to what you'd get with a pot bigger than the ring of a gas flame.

If you use mostly large pots you can get a series of individual units instead of a cooktop with lots of smaller hobs. Most of the large hobs on the market are between 10" and 11". Most also have pot detection, and if you use a smaller pot will only heat the size of the pot.

There isn't exactly an induction rangetop, but you can get the same looks. The Gaggenau 15" units and the Cooktek individual units both have separate controllers which are supposed to be mounted on the cabinet face. Some others may have that as well.
Fori
18 years ago
If the pan is bigger than the hob, it'll have to be preheated like any electric hob--the more conductive the pan is, the faster and more effective it'll be. (Same with gas, too, I guess, but gas has sort of flame spillover so it's not quite as defined a hot spot.)

Your pot exteriors do stay clean with induction. I never minded the gas marks, but with me the problem is burnt on food from spills...I'm pretty clumsy and boil over often. So being able to wipe up the pan and cooktop before anything cooks on also helps keeping the bottom of pots clean. Of course, the pots with the best-looking bottoms to be clean are copper, and very few copper bottoms work on induction, but I'm sure there are some.

I mainly use stainless which continues to look clean and cast iron which is seasoned to look unclean.
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