Interested in Induction Cookware?

[Caroline1]

I don't know if the mods will leave this up or not, but I figure it's worth a try. I've been holding off on ordering a new induction cook top because the pots and pans are so darned expensive. But the way has been cleared, thanks to Cutlery & More. When they do a sale, the do a sale! I've ordered over $600.00 worth of Miu France induction cookware for under $170.00, with free shipping! If you're interested, just scroll through this link and look for pots and pans. Make sure you read about the individual items to make sure what you're interested in is good for induction cooking.

http://www.cutleryandmore.com/miu

[Pei]

WOW thanks, I have an induction range and it's really hard to find great cookware, or to be 100% sure a salesperson knows what she/he's talking about when I ask for induction cookware. I've even purchased pans that said "induction suitable" just to come home and find they buzz loudly on the stovetop or conduct heat so poorly they never get above medium low.

[Caroline1]

They also have this rather expensive gadget for using non--ferrous pans on an induction cook-top:
http://www.cutleryandmore.com/details...

I'm assuming it will work with more than the Emil Henry brand of things, but it's only a 7.5 inch disk, which means it's not good for all the different sized of copper pans I have. AND it would require more than one, should I want to cook more than one thing at a time. I suspect I could go to a metal working shop and have them custom cut some iron disks for me a lot cheaper than this goodyl At least it validates the concept of using ferrous trivets for copper pans. '-)

[cheesemaestro]

The prices for Miu France at Cutlery & More and Amazon.com made me suspicious. I've never seen prices so low for cookware from France, soI did some online investigating. Indeed, the company is not in France. It is headquartered in China and its products are made there:

http://www.mandoline.com/aboutus.html

I'm not knocking your purchases. These pots and pans may perform very well, but to me there's something unsettling, if not downright fraudulent, about giving oneself a name that implies European manufacture, when the reality is otherwise.

[Caroline1]

It's the world we live in. If I could shove Pandora back into her box, I would but alas... Wanna help? At any rate, Cutlery & More has a user-friendly return policy. I've dealt with them for several years now and so far, I'm a happy camper. No one is obliged to buy.

[cheesemaestro]

Again, Caroline, I didn't post to disapprove of your find, nor of C&M. I've also purchased from them and been satisfied. I just want to be sure that others don't think they are getting an incredible deal on cookware from France, when they aren't. Clearly, if the company thought that their goods would sell as well with "Miu China" as their name, they would have called themselves that. The fact that they chose to include a European country in their name--one that most people associate with exceptional food and cookware--when they have no relationship to anything in that country, still bothers me. You're right. People aren't obliged to buy, but at least, they should be well informed.

[Caroline1]

Speaking only for myself, I didn't think the cookware was necessarily made in France. My initial thought was that French kitchens, both home and commercial, use far more induction cooking than we do in the U..S. Maybe I'm a bit too worldly wise for my own good, but I rarely expect that the country of origin of anything will be what would normally be expected. Caveat emptor, and all that jazz. I've been advised my shipment will arrive tomorrow. I can look at it, but I will not be able to judge how well it cooks on an induction cook top until I order one and have it installed. But now that I have something besides copper pots and pans, I can do that! '-)

[kaleokahu]

Hey, Caroline: When you get that ferrous induction-friendly set, let me know, and I'd be interested in taking that old, obsolete, outdated, non-functional copper off your hands... LOL.... Just doing you a favor so you can modernize, don't you know... ;)

[Caroline1]

I appreciate your thoughtfulness! Meanwhile I'm thinking that if I get a bunch of ferrous ball bearings and put a layer of them in the bottom of a copper pan, it should cook okay, don'cha think? I'll just have to be very careful none of them get onto anyone's plate. It might not be so nice if someone bit into one! '-)

[kaleokahu]

Nah, that's steel above copper. Easy fix, though: you just go out to the boneyard, grab a springpack from your old (or your neighbor's new) Chev, lay it across your new induction hobs, balance your beautiful copper atop it all, and cook away. Call it an "induction cooking conversion disc", and save the $75.

I tried the ball bearings, and it's like eating a well-shot mallard--schedule dental appointment before biting.

[Caroline1]

LOL! Maybe putting the ball bearings in a mesh bag is the answer? I somehow like the cleaner look of something inside the copper pot heating up rather than the messy look of having the copper pan sit on top of something. But hey, that's just me. '-)

[kaleokahu]

Ja, naturlich! Why didn't I think of that? A SPECIAL $150 stainless steel Allcladdenuisinartoxoeurosuperb(d5) "Bearing Assistance Device for Induction Sack" (BADIS). We can post threads about the relative virtues of various sizes of ball bearings. Maybe even an exclusive, limited edition BADIS in W-S or SLT. Or pay bug-eyed Alton Brown (OWHNI) to BADIS on TV! We're on a gravy train with biscuit wheels, Car!

[lattelover]

Will All-Clad cookwear work with an induction cooktop?

[kaleokahu]

I have no earthly idea, lattelover. Car and I were just funnin' over the irony of having perfectly superior copper cookware and doing gymnastics to make it work on induction. You should ask Chemicalkinetics--he keeps up with what-will-work-with-what.

[Caroline1]

Well, the stuff arrived today and it *IS* good looking! And the bottoms are thick. REALLY thick! Alas, I only have a standard ceramic cook top to use them on. I hope I can afford to order the induction cook top next month. Gotta do a lot of measuring to make sure it will fit in the hole in the granite the old cook top will come out of! Life can get soooooooo complicated! Anyway,if looks count, this stuff is a winner!

[Caroline1]

You have no feel for naming products, K, do you? Poor baby! If we want it to really sell and sell well, we will call it Bearing Assisted Device for Ample Synthesized Sizzle, aka BAD-ASS induction drop in bags. BAD ASS IDIBs! What could be better than that? We are RICH....!!!!

[kaleokahu]

I KNEW you were a gem, Car. Gas up the G5--Gstad here we come.

[Caroline1]

Let's go!

[Caroline1]

As mentioned above, the pans did arrive today -- erm, yesterday. They are quite handsome, heavier than expected, and very shiny and modern looking. They cook very well and have absolutely flat bottoms that make excellent contact with my present standard ceramic cook top. HOWEVER...!!! They seriously lack the flash and dazzle and glory that copper adds to to my black cook top and black granite island. I think we need to work harder on the BAD ASS IDIBs! K, are you listening!

[kaleokahu]

Hi, Car: Since we're now BAD ASS IDIB wealthy, you can have the gloss black AGA or Le Corneu that will live up to, and show off, your copperware.

But seriously, I am wondering how much of the induction cooktop's vaunted efficiency is lost if you simply put one of the conversion discs between the hob and your copper. Perhaps others have actual experience with this, and can counsel you.

Personally, my next range (in our Gstad chalet)is going to be vintage, and right now I'm leaning toward a 1940s Chambers dual-fuel (6 gas hobs and oven/2 wood). But if I get a wild(er) hair, I found a cool turn-of-the-[previous]Century restaurant woodstove by Duparquet, alongside which I'd put a simple pair of gas hobs on which to make us coffee (in our 1840 copper Potsdam Boiler) while the Duparquet comes up to full heat.

[Caroline1]

Two things I don't like about stoves, and I have had some beauties. First is that they are almost without exception installed so that the cook has to face the wall. No thank you. And then so very very many of them are designed by idiots that vent the ovens so they heat the handles on pans on the stove. But I also object to the fact that It's so damned inconvenient to open an oven door while you're cooking something, especially if it requires constant stirring such as a risotto or a stir fry. Who needs that?

However, way back in the 1960s, I did have a Frigidaire "Flair" electric range. If you've ever watched Bewitched, the old TV show, they have a Flair range in Samantha's kitchen. Both ovens were ABOVE the cook top, and the oven doors lifted UP, not out! And the burners were mounted so they slid out and the cover slid back, then when you were through cooking, you closed the cook top. My kids were toddlers when I first got it and it meant absolutely no worries about them touching hot burners. They don't make them any more. But even with all of the great benefits, I still had to face a wall while cooking.

So I have an island with the cook top mounted in the granite, all black so you hardly notice the cook top, and I face the room while cooking and can carry on conversations with people gathered around the kitchen table over coffee. The ovens are mounted in the wall, and can easily be opened and shut without disturbing me. And THAT is where the new induction cook too will go. In the island!

I used a couple of the new pans for lunch today. I made beef Stroganoff and egg noodles, and I am amazed at how well they absorb and pass on heat. The saucepan boiled water faster than my copper pans. I find that amazing. And I have to use heat settings lower than I'm used to in order not to scorch things.

When I win the lottery and build my dream kitchen, I still want an island cook top, but I also want a full sized wood burning pizza oven, a flat top grill, a vented charcoal fire pit, and an induction wok...! And by the time I finally buy that winning lottery ticket, I'm sure I will have added a few more things to the wish list. <sigh>

[kaleokahu]

"The saucepan boiled water faster than my copper pans. I find that amazing."

I actually am somewhat incredulous at that, unless your new pans are thinner and mostly aluminum. Copper conducts heat nearly twice as well as aluminum, but you can make partly/all/more of that up (in a way) if you use very thin walled pans, either aluminum and/or steel. I've posted a [really boring] thread previously in which I reported times-to-boil using the same sized pans of aluminum, clad, cast iron and copper on the same maxed-out hob of my radiant electric cooktop, as well as simmer settings. In the case of a 1mm aluminum pan, it boiled first, although it took a loooong additional time to come up to active bubbling and maxed out I think at a feeble 207. Whereas the 3mm copper took slightly longer to boil, but quickly made it to 212F and was actually boiling the water away from the SIDES as well as the bottom. Simmer settings were lower for copper than any other composition. I repeated the test on a far more powerful gas hob, which yielded only the main conclusion that, if you dump enough heat energy into the pan, pretty much everything will boil water very fast.

If you have an infared gun-type thermometer, I would be interested in a comparison between the same sizes of your new pans and your old copper ones in terms of the temperatures of the OUTER pan wall, say 2.5 to3 inches up the pans, at the same radiant hob settings you used for your stroganoff (which, BTW, sounds delicious).

I really hope I'm wrong and that you like your new stuff better, and so will give me first shot at your outdated copper. My bet is you have some nice pieces.

[kaleokahu]

Car: I think I figured out how and why you obtained such a fast boil with your Miu France pans, and I'm no longer incredulous. They appear to be 3-ply, namely the 18/10 stainless exterior surfaces, between which has been bonded what the vendor admits is only a 0.5mm bottom disc of aluminum, which isn't a lot thicker than a few sheets of heavy aluminum foil. (Compare the Demeyere "Inductobase" which uses an aluminum disc of 5mm--10x as thick). Until you measure the total bottom thickness (and net out that 1/2 mm), you're not going to know how much SS is between your hob and your stroganoff. But if this construction pan beat your copper in a boil test, it has to be quite thin. So thin in fact that there was little heat storage capacity to the metal, and it therefore took only a short time to come up to heat.

That conclusion may also explain why you "have to use heat settings lower than [you're] used to in order not to scorch..." I hate to burst your bubble on a pretty new purchase, but I think you're gonna find you have to either cook very slowly and at lower temperatures or stir constantly to avoid the scorching and hotspots that are the bane of Revereware owners everywhere.

Honestly, its above my pay grade to opine if this shortcoming on radiant hobs would be better or worse on induction, or whether a BADASS IDIB (thick, ferrous metal "trivet" between induction hob and Miu pan) would make any difference. Common sense tells me it would, because IT ought to be acting as the pan's hot first layer, but on the other hand, maybe not, because you'd basically just be cooking with the same thin pan on a CONDUCTIVE cooktop. And, how many pans/trivets do you want to be fiddling with? And wouldn't that negate the safety and energy efficiency advantages of so-called cool induction cooking?

Another suggestion: [quickly] take a couple of your new pans down to your friendly induction appliance dealer--the one who wants your money--plug 'er in, and run a few tests of your own. And save your receipt. :)

[Caroline1]

hmmmm.... There MAY be a whole bunch of other factors going on here. First off, the pan that seemed to boil faster was a 2 quart saucepan with about 1 3/4 quarts of water in it on the "Power Boil" burner at the left rear of the cook top. I don't use that burner all that often and can't be positive I'm not using the speed of the copper boiling things on the other burners in comparison. Hey, I cook, I don't memorize what I cooked on which burner!

The two quart saucepan that SEEMED to boil faster weighs 1 pound 11.5 ounces empty and without the lid. The bottom feels thicker than the sides when I run my hands over surfaces. And then there is some possibility it just SEEMED to boil faster because today was a "different" kind of day, as in first day on the job for the new housekeeper. So.... There is the possibility that it is a 100% subjective conclusion on my part.

That said, here come the real sour grapes. I am becoming somewhat disenchanted with said pots and pans. They are mirror finished stainless steel on the outside. You couldn't ask for prettier. BUT...!!! The INSIDE is NOT the same mirror finish, but is very reminiscent of super cheap "spun aluminum" pans of the 1950s, except I can't bend these with my bare hands. The problem seems to be that the "brushed" circular finish on the interiors of the pans has a "tooth" to it, tiny microgrooves you might say, that apparently make "stainless" steel stain. The new housekeeper cleaned up the kitchen after lunch, which included washing the pans. I did see her working on the inside of one with an SOS pad. For all of her labor, the inside of both pans -- the one I boiled the noodles in and the one I sauteed the Stroganoff in -- now show stains. Not huge screeching stains, but noticeable stains nonetheless. How the hell can you get ANY kind of stains from simply boiling noodles in a "stainless" steel pan? Or maybe that's what making stainless steel ferrous does to it? The highly polished outsides are still highly polished and stain free. Logically the stains should not impact on cooking performance.

Another session using them should proof the pudding a little more. Will my disenchantment be "to the ground?" Stay tuned. The Perils of Caroline may be continued... |-(

[kaleokahu]

Yes, keep us posted. And, in case it's "to the ground", beware of the hucksterism that's rampant in the pots & pans industry. They doubtless spend as much on advertising as materials. Stainless isn't truly stainless, the term merely reflects a blurry, actually overlapping, "distinction" between high carbon steels and those with an arbitrarily set chromium content. Virtually all SS alloys will rust and stain in the right condtions (e.g., my ATS34 dive knife), just as some high carbon steels will be very rust resistant (e.g., D2 toolsteel).

When I was looking to see what disc thickness Demeyere uses in its far more expensive pieces than these from China, I found it hilarious that even that august company touts SEVEN separate layers of metal as being somehow advantageous. OK, I get--but don't agree with--the utilitarian/idiotproof advantage of a SS lining and base, but at least 5 of the 7 layers are EXTREMELY thin, 2 of which are there ONLY to assure the main conductive disc bonds to the lining and the bottoms (pure aluminum foil in the case of the aluminum alloy disc in one line, and electroplated silver alloy in the case of the copper disc in the other). They apparently count the SS bottoms as containing 3 layers, even though it's unclear to me whether the 3 steels claimed are distinct or alloyed. One of those three is bragged of as being special because it loses magnetism at high temperature, but many common steels have that property. And "stay cool stainless steel handles"??? Isn't that a telling admission that SS (i.e., the same stuff as IN THE PAN) is also a lousy conductor of heat? I mean even BRASS would "stay cool" if the metal to which it's riveted is a rotten conductor.

I suppose if the consumer is sold on induction to start with, s/he must also sort through this tortuous series of puffery and disappointing compromises (or use cast iron, or buy what we're facetiously calling a BADASS IDIB). But when there are widely available pans made from copper and aluminum that perform better and more efficiently, it just seems ridiculous to me to choose technical yet inferior steel pans of many layers.

But hey, I want your copper, Caroline. Induction rules!

[Caroline1]

LOL! If it wasn't for the damned arthritis in my hands, I'd simply go with all cast iron, both Le Creuset and Lodge. Waitaminit, waitaminit, waitaminit!!! I'm stupid! I don't have my thinking cap on straight! I don't need no light weight induction capable pots and pans. I just need a mini-crane over my cook top to move cast iron pots and pans around! Woo hoo! Between the BADASS IDIP and the Cooking Crane (yeah, I'll design it so it looks like a crane or a heron) I can finally afford to send my kids to Harvard and pay the tuition all myself! Maybe I'll just send me instead. At their ages, they're busy captaining their respective industries. More for me! '-)

[Politeness]

[wondering if a semi-serious comment would be off-topic in this thread -- oh well, here goes:]

The Cooking Crane is what we all know as the CooCr, right?

But Caroline, with all CooCr-manipulated cast iron you would lose the responsiveness that you cherish in your present fancy-schmancy cooper cookware.

One of the great delights of using an induction cooktop is that when you want to reduce or turn off the heat, you can do t right NOW, right this instant, even more quickly than can be done with gas (where the spider that holds the pot above the heat acts as a heat reservoir, so for really fast cool-down, the pot must be physically removed from the burner).

But cast iron takes its own leisurely time to cool down after the energy source is removed. So even once you install the CooCr to move your cast iron around, you will have a need for your MIU pots anyway; your recent investment is secure.

[Caroline1]

All that you say is absolutely true, Politeness! Having given all this thought to the subject I have concluded that the very best and most practical answer to all of this is to buy that damned elusive winning lottery ticket and then hire a personal chef! I wonder if Eric Ripert is available? '-)

OOoooOOOoooooOOOOooooo.... In my wildest dreams!

[kaleokahu]

OK, Politeness, in keeping with the semi-serious theme, I get the "delight" of having the heat go away when the magnetic field's switched off. It's a nice feature, and certainly safer for cooks with unsupervised small humans in the house. But how much more delightful (and at what price) can that be than just moving your pan off the hob? With respect, if that (the instant-off feature) is induction's delight, it tempts a comparison with the light switch you clap to turn on and off.

And I'm not sure what you mean by "really fast cool-down" if you're leaving the finished food on the induction plate. I learned in my boring heat/cool experiment posted of several days ago that even a 1mm clad SS 5.75" pan with 3C of boiling water takes 58 MINUTES to cool down to 100F when moved to a room-temperature trivet. The same volume in the same size pan in the evil, heat-holding, crane-dependent 3mm cast iron took 64:36--ONLY >6 MINUTES LONGER. Parenthetically, 3mm copper finished at 53 minutes, and 1mm aluminum won, at 42 minutes. 1mm copper would have been even faster.

Unless induction hobs also impart some supernatural cooling ability, the only way I see to improve those cooling numbers while leaving the pan on the induction hob would be an immersion paddle. Which you can also use on any non-induction cooktop without moving the pan.

Am I missing something?

And as for weight requiring the CooCr, Caroline already has a housekeeper. Why not a bodybuilding Scullery Boy for that 80L cast iron stockpot?

[Caroline1]

For me, the GREATEST advantage to induction cooking is economy. There is no other cooking method (short of dried camel dung and your own caravan of camels) that is cheaper to cook with. Cheaper than any gas or standard electric cooking method. I don't know about your electric company, but mine raises the rates every time I try to cut back on how much electricity I use, nevertheless, economy of operation is the primary reason I want an induction cook top. Or the winning lottery ticket, then I will put in sufficient photo voltaics to meet my wildest electric needs and then some. The "and then some" part of electricity generated by me will then be sold back to the power company that has been scalping me all of these years. Revenge is sweet. Now, for that lottery ticket... You do have to buy them if you want to win!

[kaleokahu]

Hmmm... I am truly uninformed. What is that economy, has it been quantified? Are there any CHs who have actually put a watt meter on their induction and radiant cooktops and compared the results? Maybe someone knows of a published study somewhere.

[Caroline1]

Wikipedia is not my favorite reference work, but this seems pretty accurate to me at first glance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductio...
But remember, Google *IS* your friend! I'm really really really surprised that you aren't aware of the great energy conservation benefit of induction! I also have a GE Trivection oven for the exact same reason. I can roast a fully stuffed 25 pound Thanksgiving turkey in 2 hours and 11 minutes! Moist, juicy and magnificent! The BEST turkeys I've ever produced in more than a half century of cooking. I figure that, come Thanksgiving, an induction cook top will help me have the rest of the meal ready when the turkey is done! '-)

[kaleokahu]

Hi, Car:

No, I'm aware of the DOE's efficiency numbers. I'm also aware of the numbers in Applied Energy's comparison of restaurant cooktops in induction vs halogen and gas. Their conclusion is that the break-even times for restaurants preparing 250 lunches per DAY who switch from gas or halogen-radiant to induction is up to EIGHT YEARS. That makes me wonder (if your Chef or Scullery Boy is making you 250 hot lunches per YEAR), what your real savings will be considering replacement cost. Some electricity will be saved, but don't think that you won't be paying for it for quite a while. That's why I'd like to see an actual, real-world KW/h comparison between halogen and induction in a residential setting.

I'm also mindful of the fact that these efficiency numbers are based on how much of the dispensed energy DOESN'T make it into your food--induction is apparently the clear loser at putting it into the room, which makes it the winner in efficiency. But in my neck of the woods, at least 10 months of the year, I NEED a little extra heat energy in my house. Now, a cooktop's or stove's extra heat certainly isn't THE most efficient way to heat a living space, but that extra heat isn't just lost in my house. It's not completely in yours either, provided you run a thermostat and don't turn on the AC (my AC's a window). I DO know if I stopped cooking entirely, my electric bill for my heat pump would go UP.

That "lost heat" fallacy is one reason why I'm enamored of the possibility of using a wood (or grain) cookstove for SOME of my cooking part of the year. The wood's free to me (nearly so for the grain), I get to keep my girlish figure and rough hands splitting wood, and I probably put less carbon into the air than folks who commute by car. The "always on" AGAs and Le Corneus intrigue me for the same reason. So does the idea of putting a smoking locker into the back of my fireplace.

Now, let's consider time instead of energy. You really think the induction cooktop will cook the rest of your Thanksgiving meal FASTER? Is it going to smash your 'taters for you? Has it got a "fast simmer" setting? I'm baffled.

[Caroline1]

LOL! You're looking at things from YOUR perspective, not mine! But bless your heart for thinking I think that young. '-)

Fact is that at age 77, I do live on a fixed income, and I have absolutely no hope of electricity getting cheaper as I continue along the path to the (possible) century mark! When I moved here five years ago (well, five years and two months, but who's counting?), the only improvements I made prior to moving in were new Energy Star appliances and revamped the entire electric system, including new circuit breaker panels, and bringing everything up to code. (My son is an electrical contractor, so it was affordable!) Hey, the house was built in 1975! Then I sat back and thought about what else I wanted to do. And then reality set in. With a vengeance!

I moved here in August. My electric bills for this all electric house were running $190 to $230 a month. In November, I had house guests on three different occasions ranging in duration from three days to a full week. The largest group was for the full week at Thanksgiving, when I cooked up a storm! ALL of the fixins and then some. And it was colder than Antarctica, so the heat was cranked 24/7. And my electric bill for this all electric house was something like $270.00. Not too shabby considering, I thought to myself. December brought a heat wave and NO house guests, so I didn't even bother putting up a tree. Even went out for Christmas dinner. And my electric bill for December was over $700.00...!!! I wasn't shocked. I was apoplectic! I did a whole lot of screaming, but in the end, after my meter had been checked and said to be 100% accurate, I was told to pay up or live in total darkness. Unless I bought a whole lot of candles.

When it comes to electricity, I do not live in an area of reason. I live in an area where I have to deal with TWO electric companies, one that owns the grid, the power lines, and the meters on my house. But I cannot buy electricity directly from them. I have to buy from what I call an "electricity vendor." And when you have a problem, they both say, "Talk to the other guy, it's out of our hands."

After that Christmas present from my electric companies, I immediately and desperately searched for alternate energy. This is not an area where wind generators are all that reliable, except in the spring and fall when tornadoes come to the region. I searched diligently for a company that could/would install photo voltaics for me. If I could generate ALL of my own electricity, I would be as absolutely energy efficient as I could possibly get, no matter how inefficient my actual appliances are, and I would be totally free of the whims and irrational billing of the electric companies! But after three months of diligent searching, I could find no company within reasonable distance to install the PV system!

So I was forced down the path of doing anything and everything within reason (and sometimes not) to put a cap on my electric bill any way I can. Every electric appliance I have is either Energy Star or would be if there were an appropriate category, except my cook top. There is no Energy Star category for cook tops, but if there was, then induction cook tops would make the list. My entire downstairs is lit with CFLs or LEDs. My heating air conditioning is a 17 SEER heat pump system. Next month I plan to put in a whole house surge protector system to stop the incessant damage from power surges after the all-too-frequent power failures. The cost for repairs that have resulted from power surges has been running $120.00 a month for the five years I've lived here when averaged out. That system will pay for itself in my life time, and then some!

Soooooo... For me, I don't give a damn about how long it will take the saving in my electric bill to pay for the induction cook top. I plan on paying cash for it, and if it reduces my electric bill by ten bucks or more next month, I'm home free and a winner! All I'm after is a way to minimize spiraling electricity costs. If I still lived in El Paso, I might be turning to buying a herd of camels and drying out their dung to cook and heat with, but in this humid climate, that's not an acceptable option. Fact is I'm old and look at things from a *seriously* canted viewpoint. '-)

POST SCRIPT! You have kicked my curiosity up several notches with your interest in an AGA cooker and your concern for heat conservation within your abode. Your "handle" led me to conclude you probably live in Hawaii, but who in their right mind would want an AGA cooker in Hawaii! You sound more like you may live in an igloo than a grass hut. You tell me NOTHING about yourself in your profile page. So just where in blazes do you live? Please? Aga? Sheesh!

[Politeness]

kaleokahu: "I get the 'delight' of having the heat go away when the magnetic field's switched off. ... But how much more delightful (and at what price) can that be than just moving your pan off the hob?"

No more: it is just like moving the pan off the hob, no more, no less. In our kitchen, however, we usually do not have a convenient place to move a pan off the hob _to_ (not to mention the danger of spills while doing so).

"And I'm not sure what you mean by 'really fast cool-down' if you're leaving the finished food on the induction plate."

I misstated that: what I meant was fast removal of energy source, such as in stopping water from boiling over. With a conductive or radiant electric heat source, or even with a gas heat source, if the pot is not physically removed from its place, there is a lag time between the time one turns off the source of heat and the time when the actual transfer of heat starts to go _from_ pot _to_ outside, rather than vice versa. In the fastest of those alternatives, gas, the lag time is dictated by the stored heat in the (usually cast metal) spider that holds the pot above the flame; that is why a boiling-over pot stops boiling more quickly when you remove it from the burner of a gas stovetop than it does when you merely turn off the gas. The induction cooktop behaves more like the pot physically removed from the stovetop than it does the pot left atop the turned-off gas burner.

But that is the extreme case; in not-boiling-over cooking, the up and down controls of an induction cooktop are more nimble in affecting the heat delivered inside the pot than are the up and down controls of either a conventional electric or a gas cooktop.

I apologize for the confusion that my earlier phraseology caused.

[kaleokahu]

No problem at all. I'm still learning and just trying to make sense of things. One thing I've learned here on CH is that you are way ahead of the curve on this stuff. Your point about "nimbleness" seems to me the most cogent argument yet for induction. Thank you.

Do you think that the relative efficiency ratings of induction vs. radiant halogen (which on the high sides are 90 and 70% respectively) automatically translate into the same 20% differential in energy savings even if the radiant hob is used with copper or aluminum? I'm also interested in your opinion of how a thin SS clad pan on induction would compare speed and efficiency-wise with thick aluminum or copper on radiant across the full spectrum of cooktop tasks. Finally, do you have any experience with using the conversion discs on induction for non-ferrous pans and lessons you care to share?

[Caroline1]

Just for the record, I don't think they still make halogen cook tops. I checked into them about a year ago, and none were available. My GE Advantium oven uses halogen and microwave, but I'm not certain that GE's latest model Advantium ovens use any halogen at all. If they do, they certainly don't mention it in their advertising or on their web pages. They bragged about it the year I bought mine. I don't recall exactly why, but I seem to remember something about halogen cook tops being a problem for the eyes of the cook. I do know that from an interior design/architectural viewpoint that if you put halogen lighting in a retail store (it is beautiful "true color" lighting) then you have to compensate by making sure the air conditioning can handle the additional heat generated by the lamps. Halogen appears to be on its way out on the home front, at least where cooking is concerned.

[paulj]

With most stoves, the heat source is outside the pan, so the heat has to be conducted through the pan wall. There copper and aluminum with their greater conductivity should be faster.

But on an induction burner, heat is generated inside the pan bottom. So the speed of boiling water has more to do with how efficiently heat is generated, not how it is conducted. On my 1300w induction hotplate, cheap enameled steel pans are faster (boiling time) than induction-ready stainless steel or cast aluminum. However the fastest item that I've tried is a stainless steel mixing bowl (of the wrong non-magnetic 18/10 steel!).

An indication of the energy efficiency of an induction burner is the fact that I can comfortably touch the rim of a steel pan after bring 12oz of water to boil (about 2 minutes). Most of the heat that is generated in bottom goes to heating the water.

[Politeness]

kaleohahu: "And "stay cool stainless steel handles"??? Isn't that a telling admission that SS (i.e., the same stuff as IN THE PAN) is also a lousy conductor of heat?"

I missed this comment the first time around. Demeyere would agree with you that stainless steel is a poor conductor; but to use the term "admission" suggests that they would be ashamed to agree, which they would not.

The important thing is to choose the material to implement the function. In Demeyere (and other quality) saucepans -- pans that will be used primarily for cooking fluids -- the cook's ends are best accomplished by making the vertical walls of the pans as nonconductive as possible; an insulator would be ideal. The inside of a pot filled with liquid and heated from the bottom will, through convection of the liquid up from the bottom, be hotter than the surrounding air in the kitchen, and a highly conductive sidewall thus preferentially would heat the kitchen relative to retaining the heat inside the pot.

But wouldn't a conductive layer in a clad pan conduct heat up the sides of the pot and thus assist the liquid inside to get warmer faster? In practice, the middle conductive layer in most clad pots is pretty thin, and, being thin, is a less efficient path to heating up the liquid at the top of the pot than convection of the liquid itself is. And to the extent that a middle conductive layer does heat up the sidewall of the pot, that sidewall would tend to conduct heat more toward the room, where the interface sees a higher temperature gradient, than toward the contents of the pot, where the interface sees a lower temperature gradient.

Again, although some of the layers of a pot's bottom disk may be stainless steel, and the sidewalls of the pot may be stainless steel, and the handles of the pot may be stainless steel, they may be three different stainless steels, with different properties.

Finally, in a pot that is used on an induction cooktop, the stainless steel in the bottom disk is heated directly by magnetic friction; it does not receive its energy through the mechanism of heat conduction from the exterior. So the degree to which the magnetic stainless steel in the bottom of a pot used on an induction energy source is an efficient heat conductor is beside the point in terms of the pot's effectiveness.

[kaleokahu]

Hmmm... I need to ponder this without the help of the grape. But I am mulling the concept you suggest, that of a thermally transparent-bottomed pan with insulated sides as being ideal. More soon, so pardon my slow learning, but I l learn in my sleep lately...

[Politeness]

Without getting bogged down in detail, there are a very few basic building blocks that may aid comprehension.

1. Although with most energy sources for cooking, energy transfer and heat conduction are intimately related, with an induction cooktop, energy can be transmitted without the mechanism of heat conduction. On a gas or resistive electric or halogen cooktop, the source of energy is a heat source, and the heat gets to the contents of the pot by conductance of the heat through the bottom of the pot. On an induction cooktop, the source of energy is not a heat source; the pot itself is a transducer that converts one form of energy (magnetism) into another form of energy (heat). Returning to a stereo sound analogy, the wires that carry the signal from the amplifier to the loudspeaker do not need to have any acoustic characteristics; the loudspeaker (which is a transducer) takes the energy that is in the form of electricity and converts it into another form of energy, motion to move the molecules of air.

2. Heat and temperature are related, but are not the same thing. Heat flows, and flows preferentially. Heat flows from hotter to cooler, and within a fluid, it generally flows upward (primarily by convection). At borders between dissimilar materials, such as the vertical wall of a saucepan in which there is a border with liquid inside the pan and a border with air outside the pan, then -- if the side of the pot is the hottest of the three materials -- the heat would flow toward the side with the greater temperature gradient (usually the air outside); but simultaneously toward the material that has better heat conductivity (usually the liquid inside). In that tug of war, the temperature gradient factor usually gets the lion's share. And if the side of the pot is highly conductive, then as the liquid contents inside the pot heat up, the conductive side of the pot acts as a path to transmit the heat out of the pot and to heat up the air outside the pot.

[kaleokahu]

Politeness:

Thanks for the explanation(s).

So... do I have this right? Induction cookery is almost exclusively based on convection heating from the pan's bottom, and SS or some other lousy heat conductor is actually BETTER and more efficient because it keeps the heat in the pot?

How far up the pot's walls does the induced loop current usually operate? If all the` heat is effectively delivered at the pan's bottom and a few mm above that, how are scorching and hot spots avoided?

All this theory about keeping the heat in the pan sounds great, but I wonder if induction's advocates might be distracted a bit from other factors. I mean, obviously, not all the heat stays in the induced pan; even with SS on induction, heat's going out through the walls and lid and evaporating off the surface into the room because the contents and the bottom of the pan are hot. It's also going into the cooktop surface itself, isn't it? I think it's cool (rimshot, please) that you can boil water in a thin SS pan on induction and still touch the pan's rim, but you can do the same thing with a microwave and a glass dish or a styrofoam cup--for a while. But within a SHORT period of time, conduction and convection catch up, and EVERYTHING'S HOT, including the inside of the MW. It seems to me that, within a short time after reaching a simmer, a simmering SS pot should conduct about the same amount of energy into the room as the same simmering pan on another cooktop. Am I right about this?

If heat loss to the room and temperature gradients are the keys to efficiency (nevermind for the moment whether energy efficiency equates with cooking quality), why are there no cookware lines with super-insulated walls? I'm imagining a Demeyere-Cuisinart joint venture that manages to sandwich Aerogel or a pull a Thermos-type vacuum between widely spaced pan walls, or build everything above the loop current limit out of carbon fiber.

Now, I'm not an experienced enough cook to get on a high horse about this, but it also seems to me that there is some intrinsic advantage to a pan--whatever the source of energy--that puts heat into the contents from the walls as well as the bottom, and conversely that a pan that heats ONLY from the bottom is leaving something out of one's cooking repertoire. Or is this fallacious reasoning?

[Politeness]

kaleokahu, WOW, a lot of questions there.

1. "Induction cookery is almost exclusively based on convection heating from the pan's bottom ..."

Wrong lesson learned. SAUCEPAN cookery is almost exclusively based on convection heating from the pan's bottom. That is, if you are considering the actual cooking aspect. If you have a clad all the way up saucepan, then you are satisfying the advertising gods rather than the cooking gods, and that warm feeling that you have is the saucepan acting like an old-fashioned steam heat radiator.

2. "...SS or some other lousy heat conductor is actually BETTER and more efficient because it keeps the heat in the pot?"

In the sidewalls of a saucepan, yes.

3. "How far up the pot's walls does the induced loop current usually operate?"

Fields extend (at increasingly lower strength) all the way to outer space, but the _strength_ of the magnetic field drops off with the square of the distance from the source, that is, quite abruptly with distance. As a practical matter, there is no significant energy transfer from the induction coil to the pot beyond an inch or so from the Ceran surface.

4. "If all the' heat is effectively delivered at the pan's bottom and a few mm above that, how are scorching and hot spots avoided?"

In exactly the same manner as it is with other means of delivering energy to a pot or pan. For saucepans, a disk bottom with a thick conductive layer reduces hot spots; scorching is avoided by turning down the controls of the cooktop, regardless of the source of energy.

5. "... obviously, not all the heat stays in the induced pan; even with SS on induction, heat's going out through the walls and lid and evaporating off the surface into the room because the contents and the bottom of the pan are hot. It's also going into the cooktop surface itself, isn't it?"

Yes, yes, and yes. As to the third and last question, that is one of the reasons why turning down an induction cooktop yields a quicker result on induction than on gas. At all times, a pot on an induction cooktop is transferring heat energy to the Ceran surface on which it sits. (But Ceran is not an especially efficient heat conductor, which is why the "glass-top" non induction cooktops have historically tended toward halogen heat sources, which work by radiation more than by conduction.) When you turn down an induction cooktop, the heat transfer from the pot down to the Ceran surface continues; when you turn down a gas cooktop, the heat transfer upward from the spider holding the pot to the pot continues for a time.

6. "It seems to me that, within a short time after reaching a simmer, a simmering SS pot should conduct about the same amount of energy into the room as the same simmering pan on another cooktop. Am I right about this?"

Yes. Again, the distinction is not what energy source is used, but whether the pan is a saucepan. Woks and sauciers and slope-side frypans are designed for a different method of cooking, and the rules are different for woks and sauciers and slope-side frypans than they are for pots (like saucepans) the primarily purpose of which is to cook fluid contents.

7. "If heat loss to the room and temperature gradients are the keys to efficiency (nevermind for the moment whether energy efficiency equates with cooking quality), why are there no cookware lines with super-insulated walls?"

Setting aside the "super" part of insulated, it has been tried, but the manufacturing difficulty is a barrier. A couple of decades or so ago, Corning attempted a line of cookware that combined a ceramic body with a thick aluminum disk on the bottom to spread the heat from conventional heat sources. Unfortunately, the semi-insulating quality of the ceramic caused the pots to heat and cool slowly at the crucial bottom, far outweighing any benefit derived from the ceramic sides of the pots being better insulators than stainless steel.

8. "... it also seems to me that there is some intrinsic advantage to a pan--whatever the source of energy--that puts heat into the contents from the walls as well as the bottom ..."

In certain kinds of cooking, that undoubtedly is true. There are times when sauciers and woks and slope-sided frypans are indispensable. The rules that apply to making a fine béchamel sauce are completely different from the rules that apply to making a Szechuan stir-fry. Different tools are appropriate for each.

[kaleokahu]

WOW, I'm learning a lot (even awake this time). Thank you very much.

I need more time to think again (barrel tasting today for blending), but in the interim, how do you square your answers to #1 and #8, or why is there not a contradiction between them if one uses saucepans for sauces?

[Politeness]

Sauces are fluids, albeit viscous ones, and (usually aided by the cook's stirring) heat circulates within sauces by convection.

[kaleokahu]

OK, bear in mind that I have Sangiovese on the brain right now, but I take your answer to #1 to be a "Yes", at least as it pertains to saucepan cookery. The import of that being that heat delivered through the walls of a saucepan is largely an irrelevancy.

I also take your answer to #8 to be a "Yes", i.e., that there is an intrinsic, even "indispensable" value to conducting heat through a saucier's sides at times.

Pardon me being too viscous, but those answers still sound contradictory if one is making sauces in saucepans.

[Politeness]

kaleokahu: "... bear in mind that I have Sangiovese on the brain right now ..."

Excellent start. The very, very best Sangiovese, howeevr, is greatly enhanced by cutting it with about 15% each of Sagrantino and Montepulciano: http://www.paolobea.com/eng/sanvalent...

" ... that there is an intrinsic, even 'indispensable' value to conducting heat through a saucier's sides at times. Pardon me being too viscous, but those answers still sound contradictory if one is making sauces in saucepans."

Saucepans and sauciers are not synonymous. What distinguishes them, from a functional standpoint, is that there are progressively cooler cooking zones on the inside of a saucier as one moves upwards along the sides of the vessel to which the contents may be migrated to distribute the cooking among components of the recipe.

[paulj]

This 'cooler zone' makes sense when talking about woks, but I'm not sure it applies to the steep sides of the saucier. Admittedly I don't have a saucier, so can't speak from experience.

According to Cooks Illustrated:
" The two noticeable characteristics of a saucier are a slightly wider mouth and rounded, flared sides—the latter designed expressly to accommodate wire whisks and to eliminate any distinct edge where a sauce might seek temporary "refuge" and overcook. "
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/equip...

[kaleokahu]

Politeness: Well, we disagree about the Sangio. I prefer it blended with up to 20% Cab Sauvignon and maybe a whiff of Cab Franc. But with a lot of food, give me the straight Sangiovese.

"[P]rogressively cooler cooking zones...to which the contents may be migrated..." in a saucier and not also in a saucepan? This saucepan/saucier distinction you draw, while it may indeed have some difference in terms of shape and evaporative losses, seems to me to have little to no difference when it comes to the desirability of conducting heat through the pan's walls into the food. Why would that wall conduction be desirable in a saucier, and unwanted in a saucepan if both are used to prepare the same sauce? What would make the contents of a saucepan less able to migrate within the pan?

The reductio-a-a of this is that, if I'm understanding your distinction and explanations properly, straight-walled copper and aluminum saucepans would have gone extinct, at least for the purpose of making sauces.

[Politeness]

kaleokahu: "... about the Sangio. I prefer it blended with up to 20% Cab Sauvignon and maybe a whiff of Cab Franc."

You have history on your side: the Cabernet Franc addition was the innovation of the winemakers of Carmignano, and led to Carmignano becoming the first -- 1716 by Cosimo III (the French, of course, disagree) -- protected designation of origin wine in the world (and a favorite of Thomas Jeffereson, who had some of it shipped to Monticello). To my personal taste, however, I find that Cabernet Sauvignon (as opposed to Cabernet Franc) competes with, rather than complements, Sangiovese. Chacun a son gout.

" ... when it comes to the desirability of conducting heat through the pan's walls into the food. Why would that wall conduction be desirable in a saucier, and unwanted in a saucepan if both are used to prepare the same sauce?"

As I have explained previously, the conduction of heat through the walls of a pan is usually from, not into, the food. A liquid in a pot conveys heat efficiently upward by convection. Because heat always flows from warmer to cooler, the heat convected up through the liquid will, if the pot's walls are an efficient conductor, migrate from the liquid through the path of the conductive walls into the room, the temperature of which is cooler than the temperature of the convected fluid that has risen from the bottom of the pot.

Moreover, to the extent that the central heat-conductive layer of a clad pot is an _effective_ conductor of the heat applied by the energy source at the bottom of the pot, it is conducting heat _away_ from the bottom of the pot, which is the most efficient place to convey heat into the liquid; so the spreading of heat up the sides of the pot not only contributes more heat to the room than it does to the liquid contents of the pot, it also steals heat from the bottom that more effectively could be used to heat the contents of the pot.

In our kitchen, we choose the pan to suit the recipe. The kinds of sauces that we cook in a saucier are not the same sauces for which we would choose a saucepan instead.

[kaleokahu]

[T]he conduction of heat through the walls of a pan is usually from, not into, the food."

But Master... at the start of cooking and until the desired temperature is reached and stabilized, isn't heat also, to some degree, conducted INTO the food from the walls of highly conductive vessels? And when the pan is removed from the heat, isn't it only then that the flow is one-way?

Cannot a sheet of copper or aluminum heated from below conduct perpendicularly from BOTH of its sides in each direction, so long as what it's conducting TO remains at a lower temperature? And until one side reaches or approaches near to that conductor's temperature, won't the flow of heat quantitatively favor water over less-conductive air?

Stealing heat from the bottom... Hummm... My feeble experiments with saucepans made of different materials yielded some results that still beg an explanation. The same volume of water in the same diameter pot on the same sized hob and setting not only boiled at different times, but also reached different maximum temperatures and different activity levels. Notably, the SS clad pan maxed out at 206F, while the copper pan sustained 210F in just under half the time (12:10 vs. 6:54), even though the copper was 3x as thick. And the clad pan was observed to boil only from the bottom, whereas the copper pan could be seen to cause bubbles to form and escape from the pan's SIDES as well. I must conclude from this that, with the same heat output (and the other variables equalized), the copper pan was letting more heat into the water than was the clad pan. Do you believe these results would be better/faster/higher if only the pan was sided in Corningware or styrofoam with a copper bottom?

And Master, would not the issue and data be the same--and remain what it is now--if I had what you are calling a saucier, in both copper and clad?

Note Bene: I am undeserving of the moniker 'Grasshopper'; 'Toadstool' will suffice in my slow progress with any koan.

PS: The judges in competitions have liked my Supertuscans better than my straight Sangios, but there's no accounting for tastes, even Cosimo3's .

[paulj]

First, did you do this test with an electric burner, or gas? Hot gas will flow up along the sides, heating those directly.

In the cast of the thick copper pan, enough heat flows laterally through the copper to be a net source of heat to the water along the sides - hence the bubbles there.

With the lower conducting steel the convecting water appears to be a better conductor of heat than the steel walls, hence no bubbles there.

Perhaps the closest any of us will come to a pot with insulated sides is an electric tea kettle. Those often have plastic walls, with a heating element covering most of the base. Apparently manufacturers don't see any advantage to adding heat via the sides.

Have you heard of a Kelly Kettle? This is a tall double wall pot. The inner core is hollow, and serves a chimney for a small fire at the base. Water is boiled in the chamber surrounding the chimney. It's supposed to quite efficient because long chimney provides a lot of surface area for transferring heat to the water. The boiler of steam engine operates in similar way - the hot gases from the fire flow through multiple tubes on the way to the stack. The boiler water surrounds those tubes.

[kaleokahu]

Hi, Paul:

The numbers cited above were from the initial run on a radiant electric hob that was just under 6 inches--the same diameter as the pans, so there was no heating of air on the outside walls . I then repeated the experiment with gas, but the only gas hob I had available to me was an "outdoor" propane, triple-ring crab boiler which was pretty large--so large I couldn't hold the thermometer barehanded any other way than directly above the center of the pan. So yes, you are right that combustion gasses flowing upward along the sides put heat into the pan.

I agree with your 2nd paragraph, but Politeness may not, and he apparently knows more about thermodynamics than we do(?).

I also agree with your 3rd paragraph. But the heating water probably is a better conveyor of the heat than even the COPPER pot's walls. I think Politeness is right about that. My thinking departs from his insofar as I think that conductive walls make a positive contribution to the heating, even it out, make it more responsive than SS. In the case of my wimpy radiant hob, conductive walls made the difference in the max temp reached.

How many watts is your tea kettle? I bet it is the Full Monte of 1500W for a typical home circuit. That's actually quite a bit of energy; I think I remember others saying a small induction hob only is capable of 1300W. My experiments with gas proved that if you dump enough energy into a pan, you can boil water very fast no matter what you use. And those makers of tea kettles want to sell them cheap, so they use cheap materials and let you pay for any lack of efficiency.

The Kelly Kettle is interesting--thank you for letting me know about it. It seems to be a good example of heating ONLY the walls, much like putting a bundt pan's hole directly over a small gas burner. But I think Professor Politeness is going to say it's just a wide, shallow (covered) pan turned on it's side. But it sure has a large conductive surface inside the chimney, doesn't it? Might make A LOT of sense for a survival kit, mightn't it?

Politeness is probably on the floor right now, laughing, because this whole pseudo-Socratic discussion was about the relative inefficiencies of everything against induction. He's laughing because you and I are just (apparently) getting around to reinventing the wheel, and a STONE wheel at that if we're now talking about cooking with direct fire from wood.

[paulj]

I don't think there is a contradiction. Heat from the bottom is normal for most cooking. That includes sauces.

Possible exceptions:
wok - bottom and sides blend into each other. But bottom center is always the hottest part. Food can be moved toward the rim to slow down its cooking.

deep frying, stewing and poaching - heat is from the bottom, but conducted to the food from all sides by the liquid. Heat from pan sides is relatively unimportant.

steaming - steam generated by liquid in the bottom; cooks food from all sides. Again pan sides are unimportant, except they help contain the steam (as does the lid).

deep clay pot - these heat slowly, but once hot, conduct heat to the contents from the sides as well as the bottom. I observe this when cooking in my Chinese sand-pot on a butane burner set to its lowest heat level.

[subal]

I use All Clad induction on our DIVA induction cook top.

Here is a tip: When frying or cooking splattering food, put several layers of news paper on the cook top. Place your skillet on the paper and cook. When done, just roll up the paper and pitch it!!!

[paulj]

Even when there isn't spatter paper helps keep the cook top clean. If there's food or grease on the bottom of the pan it leave a stain, especially at frying temperatures. I use a circle of parchment paper.

[Caroline1]

Brilliant! You are a culinary genius!

[kaleokahu]

Just don't play oil, paper, candle!