Wolf Induction Review

10 years ago

Hi, I built a home in a small mountain town at 8800 ft completed almost a year ago. At the moment, it is a part time home, so I haven't been using the appliances every day since March, but I thought it might be helpful to post my observations. Our home does not have access to natural gas and instead has propane. For this reason coupled with the high altitude, we decided to go with Induction. Until recently, my thoughts were Induction is ok, but not all that amazing. It heated adequately, but not as speedy as some people were claiming. That was until last night when I used a new pan, Wow, brand does matter! I had been using All Clad, which I generally love and boiling water was 5 min or more, but when I used a Demeyere, it was almost instantaneous. Also, my lodge skillet seems to work better than my Le Creuset. So, hope my two cents is helpful.

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Kim G

10 years ago

I have the new wolf induction cooktop and have found the 10 settings quite adequate. I had reservations when I was selecting cooktops about the 10 levels but the discussion you posted was very reassuring. I cook more on low temps than high and have found the wolf to be great at cooking and holding delicate sauces/melting chocolate etc. On hi and burst - it boils water very fast. I am not seeing as much variation in the different vendors of pans that I use. I find using an infrared thermometer quite helpful to determine when the oil has heated sufficiently to saute as I am still getting used to induction versus gas.

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Comments (7)

Kathy Harrington
Original Author
10 years ago
A correction, the skillet was incorrectly identified as a lodge, it is in fact a Staub
kaseki
10 years ago
For water boiling time testing, it is necessary to use the same amount of water in each vessel, start at the same temperature, use the same hob, and time to when all of the water is boiling, not when bubbles start forming on the bottom or a few make it to the surface. Water volume should be significant, at least a liter. If the water volume is measured, and the nominal hob boost power rating is known, it is possible to calculate the minimum time this should take, usually longer than implied by "instantaneous." Note that boiling temperature is lower than 212F (100C) at higher altitudes (roughly 195F/91C at 8800 ft.)

Given that your announced results are confirmed, then one might wonder what All Clad is using for an inductive metal in their base sandwich. Maybe a partial air gap has formed between the layers, degrading conductivity. (This should show up, however, as excessive heating of the base material.)

kas
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weedmeister
10 years ago
Some all clad works better than others. I'm not sure if 3 ply versus 5 ply makes a difference.
stir_fryi SE Mich
10 years ago
I have a Circulon pan that works on my induction but takes significantly longer than my other pans to hit.

I have actually had the best luck with Ikea pans and Farberware.
kaseki
10 years ago
What concerns me most about these observations is that some of the virtual power being generated in the coil circuit is evidently not being transferred into the pans as real power for some examples of pans. This implies the voltage-current phase relationship in the coil circuit is not ideal, and could, if the circuit designers didn't account for the mismatch, stress the coil circuit electronics, particularly the power transistors, in some unplanned for way.

One can consider that the pan detection function keeps the power off when there is practically no coupling, but at some level of coupling -- certainly less than perfect -- the pan detection circuitry allows normal operation. One would hope for adequate circuit protection margin for any condition that the pan detection circuitry allows power generation for. But there is a decrease in component lifetime with stress level, so margin for avoiding short term failure might not translate to margin for avoiding long term failure.

I'm sure we would all like to know the susceptibility to long-term failure of each induction cooktop model versus make and model of pan. Probably so would the cooktop manufacturers. The anecdotal reports here may prove to be helpful beyond saving watched-pot boiling time if over the long term we see any correlation with long-term failures.

The hob circuit that failed on my 2007 Kenmore 35-inch induction cooktop when used at full power was primarily applied to either in a Demeyere Apollo kettle or small Revere Ware pan. At the time I thought that the power transfer behaved as expected.

kas
kaseki
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
More pertinent to a Wolf Induction Review, is your Wolf cooktop the newer, 10 power level settings type? If so, how have you found the power setting resolution to work out?

In http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2246536/36-induction-cooktop-with-bridge?n=96 [July 2 comment] we learned from Wolf that these settings are not linear but placed for adequate resolution where needed.

kas