Comment by lstodd
17 hours ago
Electrical is inadequate power delivery-wise and requires completely different cookware to the point that it's a different cuisine.
For example to replicate a gas burner you have to have above 15KW continious power. Good luck wiring that into your apartment, or feeding this with local solar. Or even finding an induction stovetop that won't melt its insides in a year or two at a measly 5KW.
https://www.impulselabs.com/ achieves this by storing energy in a battery. 120V15A in to charge, 10kW out for short durations. I don't have one, but it's an interesting concept.
That said, I don't know what's better, a massive lithium battery in the kitchen that can be set into thermal runaway, or a gas line.
But also, most Japanese styles of cooking doesn't need those levels of power anyway. 4-5kW induction hobs running on a proper 240V outlet or whatever the Japanese industrial equivalent is are usually plenty for most professional cooking.
I like how the video shows that you can detach the knob to clean the now flat surface ... instead of just putting the knobs somewhere other than the flat surface where food is likely to spill.
This is… literally the only surface that stoves in this form factor have?
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Gas has more raw power but it's extremely inefficient because most of it just escapes into the room, whereas with induction it all goes into the cookware. Our induction stove boils water way faster than our gas one did, and the gas one on full blast melted and ruined the handle on the pot since so much of the heat escapes around the sides.
Technology Connections on YouTube has done videos on the topic, comparing electric to gas, showing that even old-school resistive electric is faster than gas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUywI8YGy0Y
Agreed. My current electric cooktop boils water faster than any gas cooktop I've ever had, and it isn't even induction. It produces so much less excess heat into the kitchen too. You can't stop the heat instantly like you can with gas, but in practice that has been a complete non-issue. Definitely my favorite cooktop.
Something doesn’t make sense here because an electric kettle operating at 120v at less than 10 amps will boil water much faster than the large burner on my stove.
That's kind of a special case, one couldn't pick a situation more tuned to the strengths of electric. The big burner on the stove heats the air up a ton, including a huge amount of heat going around the pot, straight up around the edges. (Add more inefficiency if the pot is uncovered). Whereas the electric element in the kettle is inside there conducting almost all its heat into the water and the insulated kettle is great at keeping the heat in (my kettle doesn't really get all that hot on the outside).
Stir-frying in a wok, for instance, will not be nearly as lopsided a win, but it will still be more efficient.
50% of a gas burner's power goes into the air.
Every test done comparing residential gas vs induction burners has shown induction burners heat up pots and pans faster than gas.
Induction puts ~98% of the energy right into your pan. (Based on how losses are measured, some say 90%, whatever, it is way more than 50%!)
> Electrical is inadequate power delivery-wise and requires completely different cookware to the point that it's a different cuisine.
There are Chinese induction wok cooktops that have a curved bottom so a wok fits in and can be heated up all around. Sadly the ones sold here in the states are just 120v, really wish I could get my kitchen stove equipped with one of those running at full power. Though honestly even 240v is limiting.
I can personally guarantee you that the average Japanese コンロ does not have a heat output that would require 15kW of power to match using IH.
And that’s before we get into the safety features of modern ones that bring that limit even lower.
Most Japanese household stoves top out at 5kW per burner. IH stoves are limited to 3kW per burner for 5.8kW combined by radio regulations. 15kW is a figure for combined output or for restaurant burners.
It's apparently not great but not substantially worse either, and it's not like 5kW output of gas stoves are plenty for serious cooking in the first place so it's okay.
Most heat from gas burners is wasted heating the room. Induction is vastly more efficient.
> For example to replicate a gas burner you have to have above 15KW continious power.
Where are you getting this from? 15K BTU sure, but 15K watts? Do you mean the entire stove?
If I turn my old gorenje all out on four burners it'll output the likes of maybe 30kW give or take. The largest burner is I think about 15KW on full throttle and that does only acceptable wok or very smoky steak on cast iron ribbed pan.
For a couple of years I had nothing but a 3.7kW inductions while I lived elsewhere. Two of them melted and warped from the heat to the point of breaking the top glass and forget about wok or steaks.
If all you cook is ramen or oatmeal, induction is fine, yes.
> If I turn my old gorenje all out on four burners it'll output the likes of maybe 30kW give or take. The largest burner is I think about 15KW on full throttle and that does only acceptable wok or very smoky steak on cast iron ribbed pan.
I have an American made dirt cheap entry level induction range. It is nearly a decade old. It gets used for wok cooking almost daily. During holidays I run all 4 burners non stop for hours on end.
Plenty of commercial kitchens are switching to induction as well, it dramatically reduces ventilation costs, and it provides better temperature control. For smaller kitchens, or when a lower cost build out is needed, induction is a huge win.
The technology is reliable, even if you unfortunately got stuck with bad implementations in the past.
OK, Gorenje, gas stove, wok use: https://international.gorenje.com/products/cooking-and-bakin...
The largest burner has an output of 3.5 kW (12K BTU).
Did a general pass before sending my previous comment anyhow, found much the same across the board. What you say reliably checks out with the unit corrected to BTU on the gas side, but not otherwise.
Are you sure you're not mixing BTU and watts?
> If all you cook is ramen or oatmeal, induction is fine, yes.
No, I cook full on meals. Stews, soups, what have you. Power never even remotely came up as a concern. Quite the contrary in fact.
I indeed never used a wok or cooked any steaks though, and probably never will either, so I can't say much about that stuff.
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