Spending some time at my folks' place and using their glass-ceramic electric cooktop.

Let me tell you folks, once you start to get the brain nugget that gas stoves aren't that great you start to even appreciate bog-standard electric stoves.

It is so nice to be able to stir a simmering pot without the exhaust (!) flying around the pot and searing your hand a little.

@TechConnectify wait until you discover induction stoves! They'll blow your mind :)

And you know what? I even ran into that problem where you can't just turn the burner down because of the thermal inertia. Nearly had a pot boil over.

But upon reflection, I think I would rather get used to that then deal with the indoor air pollution. And, like I said, it is legitimately easier from a heat-on-skin perspective cook with an electric stove. That's kinda cool, actually.

@TechConnectify leaving a wooden spoon resting on top of an uncovered pot is an underrated luxury

@TechConnectify Hold up! A good *induction* electric cooktop is certainly better than a good gas cooktop. But a good gas cooktop is better than even the best resistive electric. I can't stand the unresponsiveness of traditional electric cooktops!!! How do you adjust things on the fly? You can't! Things take a minute or two to heat up and longer to cool down. It's tragic

@TechConnectify My electric stove throws off enough infrared heat to melt a bottle from a few meters above it.

@TechConnectify I really wanted to get induction when the stove died last spring, but supply chain was broken and most models cost double of the gas options, still thinking about even now...

@anathema_device I have discovered them, but I'm not actually certain that I would value one all that much.

I know I'm a tortured Midwesterner, but my read on normal electric stoves is that they are *fine* but I understand that an induction stove is better with the right cookware

@TechConnectify you could probably pay me to switch to gas, but it would take a significant amount of money. I'd take a glass top _any_ day of the week

@TechConnectify yes, you need the steel pots, but the *speed*, and the associated lack of heating up of the kitchen, is miraculous in Queensland, Australia.

@bonesbonesbones Exactly, it's not that difficult. You just have to remember and be a little more watchful

@TechConnectify Yes, but induction is king.

@TechConnectify we have a glass ceramic electric range but also a single burner induction countertop unit now, and we used that mo
st of the time

@ohlj there is a learning curve, yes, but it's not insurmountable in my experience.

My hottest take on Twitter was that if you can't figure out how to handle that thermal inertia, perhaps you're not that good of a cook.

@TechConnectify Induction cooktops are gonna blow your mind. Instant heat control and it seems like every single watt goes straight to the pot and nowhere else. A full pot of water can be boiling in two minutes on my induction cooktop, it's wild.

@TechConnectify This might be a good topic for a video! I've had gas at every place I've lived so far and only in the last few years gotten to experience life with glass-top electrics.

I've noticed that when reheating anything that isn't 99% water, like a soup or stew, scorching the food at the bottom of the pot is very hard to avoid. This appears to be the same regardless of the thermal mass of the vessel or contents.

I've had it happen with thin-wall stainless pots, heavy cast iron, and enameled cast iron dutch ovens.

I assume this is because the range is cheap and just using PWM and turning the element full-on x times an hour rather than having an element that can be 30% on, 50% on, e.g.

@TechConnectify I am the exact opposite, I made the move from electric to gas and not having to wait for the the hotplate to get hot is the biggest benefit to gas

@TechConnectify This is why I hate the "if you can't say something nice" mindset of product reviews. Disadvantages matter!

Probably the ideal situation here would be a dual-use stove, with both electric/induction and gas burners. Kind of how sometimes I use a teflon pan and sometimes cast iron, depending on what I'm doing.

@snazzyq I'm more excited about the potential for induction stoves with batteries in them, that way they can plug into a normal outlet, then I am about induction cooking itself.

I just... from the experience I had with my little single plug-in burner, I have enough stuff that either works poorly with induction or is really freaking loud for some reason that I think I might value the universal compatibility nature of standard electric more than the speed of induction.

@TechConnectify oof that is indeed a hot take. Okay fair, I haven't been *that* at a loss with the electric stove in my apartment at school. Nuance is good... But gas is so luxurious. Anyway, I hope this is all behind us in a few years as we all (fingers cross) switch to induction

@anathema_device That's true, but from my experience normal electric still heats up a kitchen less than half as much as a gas stove. You get a slim majority of the energy into the cookware, compared to gas where only about a quarter makes it in

@TechConnectify We gave up our (upper end) gas stove last year and got an induction stove for that very reason. Highly recommended- more responsive to controls than gas.
Never going back.

@TechConnectify agreed, but the degree to which you don't waste heat with induction is much much greater!

@TechConnectify @anathema_device As a fellow midwesterner, I actually appreciate having one of the portable induction burners. It is nice having the option for an extra one plus; I use it outdoors when grilling rather than burning extra propane for things that need a pot or pan.

@TechConnectify @ohlj it's not a matter of not being able to handle the thermal inertia, IMO, it's that I have to add yet another thing to my list of things that I can't avoid thinking about. The cognitive overhead is worse to me than the cost of the extra BTUs.

@TechConnectify the only case I like gas for is a wok. In all other use cases, the electric is better especially if you buy good cookware with a reasonable amount of thermal mass to even out the temp.

@kass9 gosh, I don't even think they look cooler! I mean, I guess it's because I've always had them and thus they're normal to me but let me tell you a glass ceramic cooktop or an induction cooktop is a lot sleeker and a helluva lot easier to clean.

Actually, the thing I like most about gas is that there's a lot of friction on the pots. They don't slide around like they tend to on other cooktops.

@TechConnectify man, from a usability point of view, gas all the way. Plus, we can cook food and boil water during a power cut, which is an annual happening around here. We grew up with electric stove tops in the UK, so many boiled over pans.

@stephen two things:

1. Induction. Look into it if you haven't.

2. I really think a lot of this is psychological. I was very surprised to find out that my parents' electric stove is faster at boiling water in my stovetop kettle than the "normal" burner on my gas stove. So much heat just goes around the cookware on gas and never makes it into the pot that, despite the slow warm-up, in the end, electric can be faster.

@TechConnectify Gas ranges burn fossil fuels. Not nearly at the scale of automobiles, but removing another natural gas source is a positive in environmental impact as well.

@emschwar @ohlj I only somewhat sympathize with this. I get the sentiment, but to me it feels like a thing that eventually becomes pretty automatic. It did for me the number of times I lived with an electric stove, but then again, I'm also not that adventurous in the kitchen.

I did just nail cooking rice on my first try, though, so some of those memories are still there.

@TechConnectify @emschwar hang on - about cooking rice... I've found the perfect technique. I mean if you don't have a cool magnetic rice cooker. Cook it like pasta! Just boil it in a large excess of salted water for like 12 minutes ish, then drain it, fluff immediately, and let steam in the sive for a minute or two. Results in perfect rice every time without having to measure anything at all

@TechConnectify My family always had electric stoves, so it's the only way I know how to cook.

@TechConnectify @snazzyq You may find this podcast about battery-assisted induction stoves interesting:

https://overcast.fm/+oT_kBgz8A

@ohlj @emschwar I might try that sometime!

For me, though, doing it the ol' measury way it was just a matter of watch it come to a boil, and before it was roaring I set the burner down to about 2, covered it, set a timer for 15 minutes and then I adjusted the burner up to, I think in the end it was 4. After 15 minutes I shut it off, and it was perfect.

Biggest thing I say to do is make your adjustments before you think you need to and... that tends to work!

@TechConnectify Have you ever used an induction stove? They're like a magic stove from outer space. Nothing gets hot except the cookware, and the cookware gets hot INSTANTLY.

@TechConnectify glass cooktop: great

"gas-style" cooktop with direct coils that like unplug: oh no

@TechConnectify Gas is a PITA imho. Just a bunch of hype.

Single glass sheet cooktops (or what the correct term is) is pretty nice. Just need good cookware.

@TechConnectify hah I have a glass ceramic cooktop and I just want the goddamned mosquito coils back. Glass ceramic is the worst form over function.

@TechConnectify ive spent the last 2 years at college on a 2000s renters special electric stove and I’ll take it every time over a gas stove. It took a little bit of adjustment to it keeping heat but that was quick.
I’ll finally get the chance to try an induction in a few weeks as my parents finally got their new stove in.

@TechConnectify @stephen I wonder if a lot of people, like me, had a bad experience in childhood with a truly terrible electric stove, or a really old one on its last legs, and just have it in their/our heads that electric is not good.

I thought the same about ovens, but we had to go electric to get double ovens, and (aside from using a CAPACITIVE TOUCH CONTROL PANEL positioned DIRECTLY ABOVE THE TOP OVEN DOOR which is such a STUPIDLY STUPID DESIGN DECISION) they're great.

@TechConnectify @stephen Also, the “time to heat up” is largely a thing of the past - my glass-top-over-coil cooktop gets too hot to put my hand on it within 2 seconds of turning on. Heating the pot/pan is what takes the time, regardless of electric/gas. And induction solves that.

@TechConnectify Your video has managed to convince me that when we remodel our kitchen I don't want to replace our glass/ceramic electric stove with new gas, but with induction instead. So you did that bit of good for the world!

@ilinamorato @stephen That could be! And as you have undoubtedly now discovered, electric ovens are so so so much better. They don't have to exhaust anything so they can be properly sealed and they don't heat up a kitchen nearly as much.

They're a little bit slower to preheat. That's it. That's the only downside.

I use a large toaster oven for anything I can specifically because using the gas oven sucks.

@TechConnectify I'm sure I could get used to it, I just have enough other drains on my time at the moment that to me, it's not worth the investment of money, time, or energy (mine) required. I suppose my real point here is just that the actual effort required to do a thing, is often the least, or one of the least, important aspects of it.

@TechConnectify yup - the climate town video on this explains it so well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54

I'd have induction everything if it wasn't so gad dong expensive

@TechConnectify just installed an induction range in the house I'm moving into, and I'm in love: it blows gas and electric resistance (both of which I've had before) out of the water 😁

@TechConnectify my asthma definitely improved when we were forced to go electric

that said, induction is vaaaastly superior.

it is hard to cook well on regular electric if you cook at a high level.

@TechConnectify @stephen indeed! And only *a bit* slower. Actually, this is one of the few really solid use cases I can think of for smart appliances: I can start the oven preheating from my desk, then finish working while it heats up, and by the time I get upstairs it's ready for me to put my potatoes or frozen burritos or whatever in.

@TechConnectify Better yet, get an induction stove, which is as controllable as gas, and puts even less heat into the cook.

@derek oh, I use the simmer burner specifically and it's still uncomfortable on the hands.

Methinks you might start to notice this now that I've mentioned it.

@TechConnectify Cleaning it is so easy too! I have a glass one and it’s just wipe clean. Plus, in my really tiny kitchen, it means I can use it as extra surface space when I’m not using the hob.

@TechConnectify @ilinamorato @stephen I dunno, my gas oven seems to take forever to preheat, to the point where I can sometimes be done cooking in my large 2x quarter sheetpan toaster oven (with a speed convection setting that has no preheat time) before the oven is even ready.

@TechConnectify That "wasted heat around the sides" does bug the crap out of me, but some gas cooktops allow to to use only the smaller "center ring" of the burner to mediate that problem on smaller pots.

@thorpej I have never seen one of those in real life, but for what it's worth, even using the tiny little simmer burner on my stove is still uncomfortable when stirring with, like, an ordinary spoon

@TechConnectify I just switched from propane to induction electric. When I was up in the attic upgrading the old 30A range circuit to 40A, I could smell propane leaking out of one of the fittings. Glad to have the propane piping depressurized and off for good.

@TechConnectify It's almost like the "gas is better" crowd never adapted to ceramic top stoves. They're a world better than exposed coil stoves.

@TechConnectify I spent the summer housesitting for my parents, and that time with their gas stove was more than enough to convince me I never want one. Just the time it took to boil water for some Kraft Dinner made the main level uninhabitable during the heat of summer.

@TechConnectify Speaking of indoor air quality, I had to replace a bunch of my pans with ones that have metal handles after I bought a house with a gas stove last year. It would smell like burning plastic when anyone cooked with the ones I brought with me.

@TechConnectify I think glass-top electric is just fine for almost everything. The only problem I have is on one double burner, front right, where you can switch between small and large, the small setting really sucks. But I've got 3 other elements to use, so no problem.

@TechConnectify i don’t think indoor air pollution is valid range hood vent is why

@angelwolf71885 oh they help, but my CO2 monitor definitely spikes even when I'm using it

@TechConnectify I also find my gas stovetop to be incredibly annoying to clean

@TechConnectify they aren’t perfect by any stretch I prefer infrared cooktops

@TechConnectify My induction burners definitely make some noise, but you forget about it once your pot of water boils in 90 seconds.

@snazzyq I'm not putting it past there being something wrong with my little burner, but the stuff I'm talking about was ear splitting.

Regardless, I get what you mean. But for me I think I would still classify induction as a luxury with a few compromises.

But I am a forever tortured midwesterner

@TechConnectify wait, people still cook with *gas*? Like, propane, sure... but like, natural gas? Are electric ranges not the majority of stoves in the States?

Did I miss something??

@TechConnectify @snazzyq We had to stop going to our favorite hot pot restaurant because they replaced all the resistive table stoves with induction, and it's like being in a room with an army of howling banshees for me. I don't remember the exact numbers and can't seem to find the screenshot, but iirc it was an OSHA-violating dB level at something like 17-18kHz. Utter torture, because I can still hear those frequencies just fine. I hope to get induction for our house to replace our gas stove, but I'm going to need to be very picky about what we get. I'm hoping that someone like you will eventually tell everyone what causes the noise and how to avoid it!

@TechConnectify the less good ones have really wide temperature cycles that cause big problems when doing something temperature sensitive, like canning.

@TechConnectify I got an induction countertop after seeing your video. I love it and never use my gas range anymore. (I had really wanted gas for a long time and was very happy). I would rather put my head on the gas range than go back to the cheap could burners that rock back and forth in the range, don’t allow a pan to sit flat, and create a never ending cleaning nightmare. (My induction device was noisy like yours, but it quieted down a lot when I put a silicone baking pad between the surface and my pan).

@TechConnectify Yeah, most aren’t that loud, I reckon. Our range makes a little bit of a static/whistle noise dependent on the resonance of the pan/pot, but it’s certainly not ear splitting.

@TechConnectify you should try induction (or rather your folks) - it’s far more controllable and the heat is even more directed to the base of the pot or pan. I’d say you could find a videos worth of material in it - there are nuances to get accustomed to with it

@TechConnectify @snazzyq oh this is interesting. I had an induction stove for almost 10 years and it never made a sound, which is unusual, bc I'm autistic and can hear shit like plugs and light bulbs all the time. Does anyone know why/how some of them make noise?

@TechConnectify @snazzyq Maybe different in America due to different power voltage.. but my normal plug stovetop is excellent, not silent but definitely not 'freaking loud' and heats up in a blink. It's probably too light for full on multiple pots cooking, power plug induction is better for that.

@TechConnectify I hear what you’re saying and you make sense.

But … happy wife ~> happy life.

@TechConnectify still learning the different behaviour of my induction cooktop, previously I had a resistive cooktop with the thermal inertia of a volcano. Absolutely impressive how fast it gets hot. New stuff is awesome.

@TechConnectify I am a fan of these but I think I wanna try going induction next. I dislike the noise but I’ve had one in a place I lived for a bit and it was nice. Responsive like gas but comfortable like electric top.

@TechConnectify Let me know when they invent induction hobs that have thermal control. If they haven't already, which is quite possible!

My gas stove has two glass ceramic hotplates, and I've boiled over every time I've used them. I'm horrible cooking on electric.

@TechConnectify @anathema_device We had a glass-ceramic cooktop at home since the late 90's, it was paired with a stove. The stove died about 3 years ago, and I got myself an induction cooktop (since I had to replace both). It's so much better than regular glass-ceramic – heats much faster, and responds to controls immediately.

@TechConnectify @snazzyq I've got a Bosch induction cooktop, it hums a bit on the highest settings, but it's not really problematic; even the fan is fairly quiet. The no-name plug-in induction cooker at my weekend house has a much louder fan, but again not annoying (it's about as loud as the fan in microwave oven).

@TechConnectify @anathema_device I am with Anathema here.

Lived my childhood with ceramic, then my entire teenager years with induction. Your perspective on time changes (Disclaimer I have ADHD). I stopped factoring in time when considering if I should cook or not.

I moved out from my parents and spend 2 years on a ceramic again, and cooking once more became something I did reluctantly. Got induction as a present this holiday (Induction is cheap here) and cooking is once more a joy.

@TechConnectify I like gas stove tops. But I much prefer induction. I feel like the heat transfers much better into the cooking ware and my stove top also has one of those connected fields that can merge two small ones into a big one for casseroles and stuff.
Also it's so much more easier to clean. Just spray it with some cleaning agent and wipe it down. Literally takes like 10 seconds.

@TechConnectify @ilinamorato @stephen Get an oven with pyrolysis if you can – instead of spending an hour to clean it, just run pyrolysis every now and then, and then wipe the ash out.

@TechConnectify @anathema_device thermal inertia isn't as big a problem with induction either. I regularly fail to prevent overflow on an electric stovetop, but it never was a problem with induction at my last apartment.

@TechConnectify @anathema_device you really want induction and not electric.
Way more power, way less energy consumption.
And on top of that: less waste. There's only the hot pot once you've stopped the power.
Wouldn't have anything else now.

@TechConnectify Induction is the best, instant control and no deadly biproduct or risk of cooking yourself. Only time you miss gas is when using a wok.

@TechConnectify Our Siemens (aka Bosch) induction make a faint noise at full power, but getting your skillet hot in seconds is awesome. I had to change some cooking habits because there wasn't the usual wait time before things were heated.

@TechConnectify @stephen the thing I love about my gas range is the precise/consistent control over the heat. Getting just the right temp keep a sauce simmering without pulsing up/down or needing to adjust up/down.

That said, I haven’t used many ‘modern’ induction ranges. I want to move away from gas for all of the air quality/environmental reasons, but I also don’t have a great way to test drive ranges. If I could test drive a bunch of options I would probably switch right away!

@TechConnectify Glass-ceramic electric stoves are the best in my opinion, especially for rentals. A breeze to clean, works with all pots, much less wasted heat / energy.

Can we talk about the fact that on the gas stove, the bottom of pots eventually turns black? Never had this happen on electric/induction.

Gas stoves are very rare here in Switzerland, and I certainly don't miss this from the U.S.

The only cool trick gas stoves can do is roasted peppers and work when PG&E is out...

@TechConnectify have you ever used an induction cooktop? Even better than glass-ceramic in my opinion. Would love to get a whole stove with one eventually. But for now, just have a one-burner unit. The best part is the immediate cool down after removing the pot. Would've saved so many bags of bread accidentally sat down on (or beside) a recently used glass-ceramic burner.

@TechConnectify Video!

@snazzyq if you want to hear what I'm talking about, at 13:30 or so I'm trying different cookware.

All of my laminated pots and pans are making that racket, it's just my kettle that stopped
https://youtu.be/RpoXFk-ixZc

@snazzyq but, I'm fully willing to accept that it's just some unlucky combination of bad cookware or that cooktop just isn't very good. And what was confusing to me is that I really don't think it was making this noise when I first started using the cooktop. It was only after I disassembled it that it got loud, but I can't figure out any reason that would make a difference.

Anyway, I've still got gas for now so I have time to try some more stuff out

@TechConnectify @snazzyq
The inductionplate i gifted my mother is near dead silent unless on SuperPower, then it makes a soft ‘electrical noice.’ The thing is 20+ yo. A stand alone induction plate i hought a few months ago makes noice like a departing airplane!

@TechConnectify @snazzyq

I have two instruction cooktops. One in my RV and one in my home. Neither induction cooktop makes a noticeable amount of noise beyond a very slight hum.

@snazzyq @TechConnectify I have a stand-alone induction burner and it can get pretty loud (like in your YT video). I wonder if it has something to do with the form factor/cheap build?

@TechConnectify @snazzyq Maybe integrated stoves are better built than plug in ones?

@TechConnectify Wait until you try an induction based one. My mother has a ceramic one and I have an induction plate. I turn my plate on and the pot is immediately hot. Never again do I want to live without one.

@TechConnectify I grew up with electric stoves so I'm very used to the thermal inertia thing. The easiest hack for that is to move your pot to another, cool burner. My workflow for making rice was to always heat one burner to high and preheat another to low so that I could quickly stop the boil and switch to a simmer.

Of course these days I have an induction stove so no such shenanigans are necessary.

@TechConnectify Yeah, as someone suffering with an extremely elderly and poor-quality glass-ceramic cooker at the moment, I can't agree.

My parents ended up buying a multifunction slow cooker that doubles as a rice cooker because those two things - slow simmering, and cooking rice - are just impossible. Boiling water is usually done in the kettle, then transferred to the pot, so it takes a more reasonable amount of time.

On top of that, one element just... stopped working altogether one day. It can't be fixed individually - the only fix is to remove the entire cooker and replace it. (Which we're hesitant to do in a rental and especially in this rental.)

The only upside is that ceramic is easier to clean (especially if you don't care about scratching the elements because we're about 10 years too late on that). No soaking of the surrounds and then trying to get them back on and hoping it went on right and then trying to adjust it with tongs when that didn't work...

@kyrsjo putting a battery in the stove would provide an energy buffer to allow it to produce more heat energy than it can draw from the wall.

This is important for electrification, as homes with gas stoves do not have a circuit run for an electric range and adding one is expensive. Putting a battery in the stove allows it to dump 5 kW into a pot to bring it to a boil in ~5 min and then pull 1.5 kW from the wall over 20 minutes to recharge that battery.

@kyrsjo admittedly, I have mixed feelings about the idea because I don't exactly like "more batteries in more things!" But the truth is that even when cooking a pretty complex meal, on average, you only need about a kilowatt of energy from a stove.

The only reason we wire up our ranges to pull ~10 kW is so that all burners can run at the same time, which rarely ever happens and never sustainedly.

@kyrsjo The battery can also provide some other benefits though. For instance, allow you to cook a meal when there is a power outage or also just shift demand away from peak times without affecting your ability to cook.

That's generally the pro of more batteries in more things, but like I said I have mixed feelings about it. That sort of thing feels more appropriate to manage on the grid-side, but to make an induction stove more attainable I dig it.

@TechConnectify
I see! Different perspective then, here stoves are traditionally resistive-electric (before that, wood), so there would always be a circuit installed if you upgrade to inductive.

@TechConnectify

Thanks for replying, love your channel, and have a very merry Christmas!

@TechConnectify
Yeah, i have the same feeling about grid batteries in general, that they should mostly be installed, maintained, and financed by the grid operators, not by random people on their homes...

@TechConnectify @kyrsjo this is a really cool concept. (and i love that i’ve stumbled upon this post shortly after the electric company sent out a text asking us if we could preserve energy use if we were healthy enough to do so)

@TechConnectify @kass9 my girlfriend has a ceran top range on her oven. My place has the open coils & drip pans. Used hers way more often (daily?) since we met as the coils & coil supports etc on mine are warped from improperly fitting replacement drip pans and its a bear to clean.

@TechConnectify The best advice I got for working on electric was to just lift the pot/pan. Plus, if the contents are amenable, rocking the pot/pan back and forth helps to cool it down before you put it back on.

@TechConnectify I've recently become aware of the indoor pollution issue. There was a chap in the US who went on a week long trip to visit a conference, and took a CO2 monitor, as proxy for measuring his risk of contracting covid (more CO2, more people). He blogged the data from the monitor for the week. It was an eye-opener. Since then I've taken pains to regularly clear the air out in my apartment.