UKC

As above. We've got the choice of an induction or gas hob for our new kitchen. Up to now we've always had gas. I know how induction works and the arguments in favour and in fact the kitchen suppliers have lent us one to try for a week. So far, not convinced - I find it difficult to find the right settings fo simmering etc and it's also quite noisy. I'm looking for folk's experience when faced with the same choice... Thanks;

In reply to jon:

We just bought a house which has an induction hob in situ. Having always used gas, I was unconvinced but after a couple of weeks I am really getting on with it.

Our is only noisy if you are using 3 or more rings at the same time, which we don't often do. With one or two rings running, it is pretty much silent. I don't find the noise of 3 running a problem as for me it isn't that loud and we normally have music on while we are cooking anyway. Ours is really good for simmering, I haven't had an issue with that at all.

I was also pleasantly surprised at how many of our pans work with it.

The only thing I have found it isn't good for is cooking things really hot, like searing steak or similar.

Of course different hobs may be different - ours is made by Neff, although I don't know the model off the top of my head - one of the top two on here: http://www.neff.co.uk/product-showroom/hobs/induction-hobs.html

In reply to jon:

we have just changed to induction, ours it almost completely silent, the only noise is when its on the power setting with a slight hum. It took about a week to work out the right temps for a steady boil, simmer etc but now find it great. I have had gas before in my previous house but this house we couldn't without great amount of work and expense so we invested it in a good induction cooker instead.

In reply to jon:

Personally I'd go for gas, it's infinitely and instantly controllable and you don't have to deal with fiddly/slow touch button controls that most electronic cookers seem to come with plus you don't need special cookware so you can carry on using the occasionally used things that may be incompatible with induction (big brewing pots and coffee makers in my case). On the other hand I'm assuming you already have a gas supply.

jk

In reply to jon:

as good as gas once you are used to it. But ours is overly sensitive and even if it's turned off, it makes annoying beeps if you put anything on the cooking surface that isn't metal.

In reply to jon:

I'm faced with this choice, and I'm going with gas. I recall being young in the aftermath of the great storm of 1987, and the only reason we had hot foot or hot water to wash with for the next week was having a gas hob and a good stock of bottled gas.

Might get a single induction burner as well, they do look nifty. Many of them come with stupid f----g touch screen controls however. Why the f---kety f--k do I want to be pressing a button to select a burner and then repeatedly mashing "down" buttons that are flush on the panel that the jam is boiling over on to you f-----g stupid hob manufacturer.

Okay, one should probably blame consumers who want a shiny thing and not a practical hob, but what idiotic moron decided to replace a knob that combines a visual indication with a rapid, obvious way to change a setting with a sodding touch screen thing with little 7-segment displays? Morons.

In reply to summo:
We've had an induction hob for about 7 years - love it. Absolutely as controllable and instantaneous as gas, never noticed any noise other than on "P" and so easy to keep clean.

In reply to jon:

We've an induction Rangemaster cooker at home and it is great - proper knobs so controllability is simple. It's also powerful, although small pots don't seem to work as well as big ones. We use Silit pots and a Tefal induction frying pan. It does hum, but nothing offensive. Once at temp it cycles on and off - you can watch the bubbling increase and decrease in time with the humming.

In reply to andy:

must be a brand thing, it senses if a tea towel, oven gloves, packaging... before you even start cooking is lying on it and beeps at you, as a warning. It doesn't matter if it's off/on, or cold... just beeps every 10 secs or so until you remove the offending article. almost as annoying as those self service tills when they have bizarre errors.

Rant over. Cooking wise, never a problem.

Never had a problem with touch sensitive top, much easier to clean.

In reply to wintertree:


Depends on the interface. We recently renovated our kitchen and went from bottled gas, to an induction hob (its a Bosch one, don't know the model) and has individual power numbers rather that +/- which we selected for that particular reason.

I'm staggered how responsive it is - including lowering the heat as well as making things hotter - so far very impressed. Since we have a U shaped kitchen, open plan with the lounge and the hob is quite on display we preferred it to gas - also much easier to clean.

The downside is the cats walk on it and make it beep - but it has a child lock setting you can put on but we often forget.

In reply to jon:
We live in a block of flats with no gas so went for induction as the least worst option. Its much better than traditional electric hot plates but I'd go back to gas tomorrow if it was an option. It also means you have a way of cooking if the electric supply is cut without having to find the primus or camping gas in the cellar.

edit to add - I was also 'forced' to buy an expresso machine as the smaller Bialeti coffee makers don't work on an induction hob, much more expensive & the coffee isn't better.

In reply to jon:

I'd go gas - it works during power cuts

I used to have gas, but now use an induction hob. I agree with the comments about it being tricky to simmer. First time I ever used one, I all but welded the pan to it, as I forgot to turn it off after cooking.

It is a pain to keep selecting which ring you want to control on the touch screen panel and a number of things will inadvertantly either turn it off or we get errors and beeping sometimes when things get put on it.

It beeps annoyingly when you take a pan off the ring, too - it doesn't understand the concept of tossing pancakes, draining excess liquid and that sort of thing.

It can also turn itself off if something boils over, which is a safety feature, but it's a bit of a daft place to put the buttons, as you have to take all the pans off, clean and dry the surface and start again.

Never noticed any noise from ours once it gets going - makes a bit of an odd "start-up" noise, though.

Compared to gas, it's a doddle to clean, though, and can be handy extra work surface.

In reply to jon:

Induction every time. Had a Neff one for 9 years now, amazing. No noise unless on "boost" much faster to heat up pans than gas, easy clean and safe. You can wipe the surface immediately you lift the pan and can cook through a tea towel if you think it will boil over.

In reply to jon:

No gas in our village so we bought a Bosch induction.

I wouldn't go back to gas now. Controls are pretty intuitive, only noisy on boost or with all 4 on full blast. Plenty controllable for simmering.

We actually keep it clean too!

Hmmm, well that's very interesting. I expected all replies to be completely in favour of induction! Looks more like 5 for, 4 against and 1 not quite sure. We just came in late after climbing and Mrs J was very impressed at the speed - heating up and cooling down. Still feels really fiddly to me though, but I guess I'd get used to it. Maybe. But it is noisy - maybe it's an old one?

But gas, we've never been dissatisfied with it and the only reason we're even considering induction is that we've been given the choice - brand new kitchen in a brand new house - and don't want to miss out on something really good!

Doug, why would you go back to gas tomorrow if it was an option?
JK, well we use bottle gas. A big cylinder fits in a 40 x 40 cupboard. And yes, we don't want to buy all new pans and stuff. And I do like my (aluminium) coffee pot.
Summo, doesn't the bleeping mean that it can't be use as a work surface?
Toerag, I don't really like the touch controls but a proper knob control seems like a good idea.

Thanks folks.

In reply to jon:


You can buy adaptor plate things - basically ferrous plates that you can put your aluminium coffee pot on top of. I wouldn't recommend using them for saucepans because they aren't as efficient as actually using a ferrous pan, but for the occasional thing that is well loved or hard to replace like a coffee pot they are ok. I was pleasantly surprised that we didn't actually need to buy any new pans - we had enough that worked.

We use ours as a work surface. We discovered that if you activate the child-safety lock on ours it stops the beeping and then it's fine, although obviously that might vary by brand.

In reply to kathrync:

Thanks for that Kathryn. Yes, that makes sense. I suppose any ferrous plate wood do the trick. Still not convinced, but about to start dinner now - day 4. Maybe we'll have some sort of breakthough...!

In reply to jon:

Most interesting. I'd never given this issue serious thought. Those induction cooktops are pretty neat IF your cookware is ferrous. A lot easier to keep clean than a gas cooktop.
Wikipedia has an excellent section on disadvantages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_cooking

In reply to jon:

In my limited experience of induction hobs; gas is my choice.

In reply to jon:

Had Induction for 7 years now and its great.
Hob surface is cool, reacts quicker than gas, ours is pretty quiet, very controllable, one of the hobs does really hot.

That and the Corian worktop are the things we would get again.

In reply to jon:

I have cooked with a gas hob for over 25 years. We moved house 3 months ago where there is a gas supply but only to the boiler which is in the garage but no gas supply to the kitchen and it would be very costly to sort that, so I am going for induction when we replace the kitchen. I have bought a second hand AEG gas hob to go in the garage to use mainly for stir frying.

In reply to jon:

i had a similar question in my new kitchen but was eventually forced out of the induction possibility as they don't really do narrow cookers.
In the end, i did something i thought i would never do which was go back to electric! But ceramic electric.
I find this is a good middle ground surprisingly. Its a lot cheaper to buy than an induction cooker and a lot easier to clean than gas. And it changes temp far better than traditional electric.

I have since then had the opportunity to cook for a week on an induction cooker and felt that i wasn't really missing anything

In reply to jon:

Main benefits for us were (a) burning gas is not that clean; with an induction you will notice you need to paint less often (b) once you take the pan off the heat has largely gone so safer (c) you can buy/generate your electricity to cook with from sustainable sources

Induction is terrible if you want to do high temp cooking like Indian and Chinese food. Proper stir frys etc. Induction uses will tell you that they can do it just fine but you seriously can't. I would never use induction for serious cooking again.

In reply to Milesy:


I was going to mention this too, though more because round-based pans won't work very well on the flat surface, rather than an inherent problem with induction.

Does anyone know about the usage cost comparisons? Gas is cheaper per unit, but wasteful of heat.

In reply to jon:


As I think I said before, I'd change tomorrow if I could, but there's no gas supply and the co-propriete agreement forbids bottled gas

In reply to Doug:

should have added, induction doesn't seem quite as controllable as gas (but not bad) and doesn't seem to get as hot for eg stir fries.

In reply to Milesy:

I suspect it depends upon the hob rather than Induction in general.
Ours is designed with one hob that is more than twice as powerful as the others and you have to turn it right down to 3 to simmer or 7 to 8 to cremate with 9 just to get a quick blast. The other 3 hobs will rapidly take up to boil but then 4 to 8 to simmer