The Cooktek induction wok also has a zone at the center that is not as well (or at all) directly heated by the induction coil. I think this is a property of the nature of the induction field and the limitations of practical coil construction. (The smaller the coil diameter, the fewer magnetic lines per unit area will intersect a spaced off inductive surface.) Even flat induction hobs may be observed generating more of a ring of heat than uniform heat when a pot with a very thin inductive base is used to boil water. The usual "induction ready" multilayer pot and pan bases, however, smooth this effect out at the cost of slightly increased response time.

I'm surprised that Asco didn't supply a wok with a matching contour so that the wok did not actually touch the Ceran. The Cooktek has a metal ring at the top to keep their supplied wok slightly spaced from the glass. Cooks capable of redistributing the wok contents by shaking the wok in the air are at risk of returning the wok to the glass with some down force.

kas

Thank homepro. Thank Kas.

Yes, Kas, I do understand the effect of induction coil pattern and the heating pattern. When boiling water using my the bridge induction unit, a pattern of a coil can be observed as well, even with multiply cookware like All-clad. I use their basic 3 ply version.

Part of the funny thing was that before purchasing this AEG unit, I tested my 15" wok on another brand, Smeg, induction wok hob at the store because AEG unit was just a display model and was not hooked up to a circuit. Smeg unit was rated at 3kW on boost, and give evaporation of 80ml timing at around 2m30sec. It was also about 2m30sec on my 13" wok. So at that point, I was pretty sure that my 15" wok would work on AEG well. But it turned out it did not, funny. At home I also have in home display for import/export power. While boiling water, I observed that when using 15" wok, power consumption is quite a bit lower compared with other woks. I am a solar user here, hence the in home display to monitor electricity import and excess solar generation export. Also it is free (or cheaper) electricity to cook with power hungry induction hobs and oven during day time.

AEG hob comes with a multiply stainless steel wok that matches the contour of the Eurokera glass. In 80ml evaporate test, that woks comes about 1min45sec. It is faster, and has more even heating pattern. The down side is that it is so heavy and makes tossing food really cumbersome. It is a different approach whether to toss food to cool the wok down, or using the touch control, lower the power and stir food around.

It seems very common that domestic units just come with plain ceramic glass, and commercial units usually come with metal ring on the top to protect ceramic glass from contacting the wok directly.

Not being facile with the tossing technique, I just stir my wok's contents and use the control knob that Cooktek provides to crank power up and down as needed (nil to 3.5 kW). The ca. 14.5-inch Cooktek wok is also pretty heavy, particularly partly filled. If I were a certain sailor who could extrude an entire can of spinach intact with his grip, I'm sure I could deal with the weight.

"Real" power used by an induction wok hob will partly depend on the extent of coupling into the "real" part of the pan's impedance.

kas

Thank-you for posting the detailed, informative photo essay! And congratulations on getting the new unit in. I was wondering how you'd find it, so thank-you for answering all my questions already. :)

The only thing you haven't told us is how you like cooking actual food in the new wok on the new induction unit?

(I wish we had one of those displays for the solar power. The closest we have is a little directional icon on the meter, outside, and the meter numbers going forward or backward.)

Kas, thank again for informative discussion. The bit that was puzzling me about my well used 15" wok was that it seems to performed well timing wise with evaporating water test on Smeg unit, comparable to 13" wok. Smeg unit has Schott ceran glass, so it might have diffetent curvature to Eurokera glass on AEG. Or it might be that electromagnetic field on AEG with this particular wok sitting how it is result in lower power draw and hence not as good timing for evaporation test.

Plllog, I have been cooking only a few dishes so far. Deep frying some beans, and flour coated pork for stir fried beans. and sweet and sour pork. For shot frying time, it was cool that carbon steel wok rim is still cool to touch, despite having a good amount of hot oil in it.
Stirfrying simple green is awesome. It has so much power that wok hei flavor can be achieved so easily while green still has a lot of crunch.
Reducing sauce/thickening sauce is faster too. We all know that induction is very good with liquid cooking
So far, I have been happy with it and don't think I will regret upgrading one gas hob to this induction wok hob. Yet, still have to wait for my new wok to take on more seasoning over the next few weeks. It is still sticky at the moment.
The only curiosity remain is whether chilling on induction wok hob or on Capital open burner would provide more satisfying cooking experience.
My inhome displays are just simple pulse counting units attached to smartmeter. It is accurate for total kWh, but just approximation over a period of time for instantaneous kW reading. Solaredge system had an option for clamp type metering as well, but I will wait for cheaper battery storage first.

Is the smart meter a power company device that measures true power, not just volt- amperes? (USA power company meters are of the true (real) power type.)

Besides mismatched curvatures, different steels may be involved with potentially slightly different inductive coupling efficiency.

"Stirfrying simple green" took me aback for a moment:

Yes, Kas. The meter belong to power company. It measures import, export, lead, lag, power factor all that as it is the one used for billing. Lucky for me that this model installed at my house has two LEDs which are program for one to pulse for import and one for export at 1 pulse per 1Wh.

Thank-you for the pictures, Chanop! When it comes down to it, I don't really need to know the power draw, but it would sure be cool. :)

Re seasoning the wok, will it fit in your oven? Because it's a lot easier to season that way. If it's sticky, it's not really polymerizing, and will take that much longer.

It's good to hear how well the new unit is working for you. For something new, we say, may you be renewed. :)

In-home display is a handy tool to see if when we should turn on some appliances when we have enough excess generation. Washing machine will need 2kW during initial heat up, dish drawer would need 1kW during initial heat up, dryer would need 2kW for quite a bit of time. It is just a tool to help saving money a little bit more.

Wok won't fit into my tiny Miele combi steam oven. Actually, I have never tried seasoning in an oven, been doing it on the stove for all sort of carbon steel and cast iron cookware. For this wok, I only meant it is sticky during cooking, not to touch when cool. With a bit more time and layer by layer seasoning from cooking, it will be less sticky and fairly smooth eventually. In the past it took me at least two to three weeks of regularly cooking to get reasonable surface.

Oh! I get it now. I was thinking it wasn't getting hot enough on the induction. I season my carbon steel pans on the cooktop, too, but seasoning in an oven is dead easy. If your pan fits. :)

Hi Chanop,

Did you still use the Asko hob or are you converted to your new induction unit ?

Hi sub, I should have come back and up dated this thread earlier.

In a broad statement, I am an induction convert. Most of my cooktop cooking is on the AEG induction wok hob and Asko bridge induction hob. Asko wok hob is still in used. Its regular use, because it is there, is for drying with woks, pots, and pans with flame and heat. There are some tasks that I would use Asko wok burner because it is doing there job better with concentrated central heat, and because it suits some pots and pans better. These are, frying egg/omlette in a wok; roasting small amount of spice; searing meat at high heat with cast iron and carbon steel pan as well as using Lodge cast iron pan and Delete buyer carbon steel pan in general; some very small Scanpan serving size saucepans, won't work on induction, so they go on gas.

For the induction wok hob, most of the time I will be using 14" carbon steel wok that I bought at Leung Tim in Burwood. Its curvature matches well, but it sits just around where the induction coil is rather than at the very top rim. After having been using it for a while, I now use both touch control to vary heat as well as using tossing action. Generally, I would use lower heat settings initially e.g. 10 - 12 to warm up the wok and initial frying of aromatics, spring onion, ginger, garlic, chilli bean paste etc. Then I would raise heat up to 13 -14 before adding main ingredients. Power boost is used sometimes, not as frequent as I initially thought.

I also use wok hob with supplied multiply heavy stainless steel wok. However, I only use this wok mainly for steaming, and for pasta/pasta sauce.

Will update this thread again with some very more pictures after the holiday.

Hi, I have purchased an AEG induction wok burner, can anyone tell me if the power supply should be 15amp or 32amp please.

Glenn.

What do the installation instructions specify? What is written on the electrical interface tag attached to the unit?

If I had that I wouldn’t be asking the question.

Thank you Kaseki

The appliance is a new unused ex display unit, so did not come with the installation manual, and I am having diffi finding the information

any help would be gratefully appreciated

best wishes

Glenn

difficulty

In answer to the questions of the correct wok, sizes and radius, my AEG wok burner came with the correct wok included in the price.

Glenn: Are you in the USA or Canada? There should be a UL or CE label glued tp the metal shell encompassing the electronics that specifies the power requirement.

However, according to theinductionsite.com, AEG is an Electrolux brand not sold in the USA. This suggests that the best place to search for data is to start here https://www.aeg.com/ and go to the relevant country's portion of their website. The UK portion shows many induction cooktops with instruction links, but a quick look did not reveal any induction wok hobs among the 34 listed. Perhaps yours is out of production and a model number search across the WWW will be needed to find an on-line instruction guide.

I could only find a wok adapter for a flat hob made by AEG.

Hi Kaseki,

yes the label states 3,2 kW

I am in the uk

3.2kw model in Australia would translate to 16A for the regulation, By calculation it is just 3200w/240v = required amps.

If you are choosing between 15A or 32A circuit, 15A would be enough.

Mains voltage in the UK is 230 Vac (50 Hz). 3200W/230 = 13.9A, rms. There is a bit of ambiguity with respect to the actual volt-amperes of what may be a fairly inductive load and whether this 3200W is the available power for transfer to the pan, or the actual mains load. Given the label I would assume that it is the drawn power.

This gets us to the design of UK circuit breakers or even fuses. In the US, they have an actuation time vs. load. Also there is a requirement in our electrical code for not overloading circuits by more than 80%. This leads to my suggestion that the breaker or fuse be 20A, assuming that the wiring is at least 12 AWG between the outlet and the breaker box to allow this size breaker or fuse. (I understand that in the UK, fuses may also be found in the appliance plug, so that should be inspected.) There is also the consideration of in-rush power that the breaker has to tolerate, so operating the unit on a breaker close to its nominal draw risks unnecessary breaker resets.

If I lived in the UK, and I didn't have a copy of the necessary code [BSA 666 perhaps? :-) ], I would consult with an electrician.