We regularly use both black cast iron and Le Creuset cookware on our old glass topped electric range. No signs of cracking. I ~think~ that the laws of physics would indicate that while the cookware can hold heat, it cannot get hotter than what the electric elements themselves make the glass...

If the pot is matched correctly to the burner size, then there is zero issues. The issues come from those who slam down cast iron on glass. I made my almost 90 year old mother give up her cast iron only because she was getting a little weak to be lifting it on and off of the stove and had become a little less than delicate about doing so. I say "made" only in that my sister and I went through her cabinets and removed it and replaced it with some lighter weight pans.

Maintaining your own muscle strength is something for you to think about as I know you are in retirement. If you keep up with lifting the LeCreuset frequently instead of weights, you probably won't have any issues. :)

We use Le Creuset on our glass-topped electric cooktop frequently with no problems.

The original cooktop here was a glasstop and I was advised to be careful with my older Le Creusets, which don't have enamelled bases, just cast iron, as they might scratch the glass. The newer ones (i.e. 15 years old, rather than 25!) all have enamelled bases.

However, I never did get any scratches.

Chiming in to agree with the others. My mom has glass/electric and cooks with Le Creuset and other cast iron all the time, including the large round stock pots.

I have two large Le Creuset stock pots (enameled) and a huge Lodge cast iron skillet (not enameled), and I just moved from a house with a glass electric stovetop. My cookware didn't match the size of my burners, and I never had any issues. I will say that these pans get HOT HOT HOT, which you probably already know, so I never went past medium on my burners, even to boil water.

However, I burned my hand on that darned skillet a hundred times. THAT was the only hazard! :)

I don't think it's a matter of cracking but rather the heat retention of LC. Yes, ppl love it. But because of the heat retention, it only slowly goes from blazing hot to medium or less.

Now that I have induction, I could not work with a product that was not responsive to CHANGES. And LC responds so slowly to changes in temp, that I only use mine for baking no knead breads-same temp. I could not use them on the cooktop.

And I know users are diehards. They love their cast iron. Not for me. My cooking requires the ability to make changes, promptly.

Just another thing I don't understand.

Westsider...Thanks for pointing out that the LeCreuset may be slow to respond to changes. I'm going to get an induction cooktop soon and I hadn't thought of that. As a matter of fact, I visited a LeCreuset store this afternoon to look at their pieces. This is funny: as I walked in, I was greeted with a wonderful aroma--it was as if a stew had been cooking all afternoon. Well, no stew...the employee showed me a pan full of onions, simmering away on a little induction hotplate. He said they just have it going for the aroma!

I'm using induction and cast iron (with and without enamel) all the time - they seem a perfect fit to me! I also use All-clad pots and don't see much difference in the speed of heating of similar volumes of pots because although the AC is thinner (only relative to cast iron - it's still plenty heavy), cast iron has so much more iron mass for the magnetic energy to interact with I think that cast iron heats up quite quickly and responds promptly to adjusting the induction power. My cast iron is vintage, but most of the enamel on cast iron is more modern (French, Scandinavian and Chinese). My (only) Lodge cast iron pan is (still) a dog however, so maybe that's the difference?

One of the minor pleasures of being temporarily using Viking induction burners rather than my gas range is that I hauled all my old cast iron out of storage when I had to stop using my pyrex and copper and lots of my stainless steel pans which turned out not to be magnetic. It was good to get reacquainted with them.

L.

We use cast iron on our glass top induction with no problems. If you are worried about scratches, cook with a paper towel under the pan when you get the induction.