Several diverse responses:
Quoted message said:I'm not sure how it will work for wok cooking or with my carzuela (clay!)
Wok cooking does take more power, but is still easily accomplished on a
suitable induction unit. Numerous makers have wok units, typically at
3.5 kW power; most of those have a bowl-shaped indent, and come with a
matching wok pot. Some makers, especially a few commercial suppliers,
make "wok" and "multi-purpose" units, also often 3.5 kW, that have a
flat surface but, apparently, use some sort of adapter for wok use (and
other adaptors for other uses, such as pasta-water pots).
As to clay pots, while they won't work direct, there are workarounds;
at http://www.toshiba.co.jp/living/webcata/cooker/ihc_25pb.htm you can
see a japanese countertop unit with a special sort of "Dutch oven" top
especially designed to hold a (correspondingly custom) earthenware pot
of the type traditionally used in Japanese cooking. Thus the unit
allows using induction to cook in a traditional-form pot that would
not, by itself, work on induction. That is not a big development, but
is an interesting example of how thoughtful makers can reconcile modern
technology to traditional forms.
Quoted message said:The one time I tried to use one was in the fancy house of a non cook, for a large meeting in the village hall. The (society supplied) big pans of course didnt work properly on it and several people went away saying induction is rubbish. . . .
If you're going to cater, do it like the pros: bring *all* your own
equipment. But while induction is widely used by professional caterers
(because gas is not always available, plus gas is a major safety risk),
the real application future of induction will be in displacing all
other fixed heat sources in both professional and household kitchens.
(Those who will dismiss as "rubbish" what they plainly wot not of are
the reasons for so many of the charming events we see in history.)
Quoted message said:I think it will need to not dictate what you cook with to convert many of those currently "cooking on gas".
In time, it will work with any metal vessel, but even so: that's like
saying cars will never replace horses till they can be made to run on
oats (or, more on point, till they can use horseshoes instead of
requiring tires).
Quoted message said:. . . or my 5KW gas ring!
I am not accustomed to seeing gas heat reckoned in watts (as opposed to
BTU/hour). If the figure is simply the energy-table conversion between
units, it is incommensurable with induction cooking power. One would
have to divide a gas burner's heat output, if expressed in kW, by
roughly 2.1 to get the equivalent rating of an induction element that
produces the same net cooking power (gas is on average 39.9% efficient
in heating, whereas induction averages 84% efficiency). On that basis,
a 5-kW gas ring equates to a 2.38-kW induction element. Elements of
about that capacity are common on most household induction cooktops.
Quoted message said:Of course us lucky people in uk.food+drink.misc (well most of us) have 240V 13A sockets everywhere in the house. I think that makes 3.2kW of power available.
I would be inclined to say that 2.8 kW--possibly even a little less--is
about the maximum feasible plug-in-unit power, because one must assume
that the line voltage will occasionally fluctuate from its nominal
value--a +/- 10% range is safest for figuring. It also depends on how
close to the edge one cares to work, so far as the risk of tripping a
breaker on a low-voltage condition (suppose the individual unit is
actually, say, 3% over nominal power rating?) Notice that, not
surprisingly, that is just about exactly double the amount likely to be
conservatively safe in 115-volt regions.
Quoted message said:. . . and our cooker points are 30 or 45 amps
I would be interested in knowing the relative distribution of
ampacities in the U.K. and on the Continent. In the U.S., 20 amps is
code minimum, but most such circuits are 30 amps. One can, of course
(if building or re-modelling) demand whatever one cares to pay for, but
there remain limits on practicality. If, for example, the house entry
box is only 200 amps (as is common in the U.S., even for newer homes),
a dedicated circuit of, say, 50 amps would be quite a high percentage
of the house's entire supply.
Moreover, there is another question: who needs it? If one is involved
in that game by whose rules "he who dies with the most toys wins",
that's one thing; but for practical cooking, how many households need
more than, say, 6.3 kW total induction cookpower (about the practical
limit for a 30-amp circuit) at one time, and how often? In gas terms,
that's a little over roughly 45,000 BTU/hour, or the equivalent of four
burners each running at well over 11,000 BTU/hour simultaneously. (or,
to continue on down, of three burners each running at over 15,000
BTU/hour--which, as best I recall, is the level of some of the most
expensive, fancy-dancy home-kitchen gas units available).
Remember that a typical home induction cooktop rarely if ever comprises
four equally sized elements. Often--though there are many
variations--there will be a couple of smaller ones,a medium-sized one,
and a large one. The *least* expensive--reckoned on cost per watt--of
the 4-element units in our site's database has these element powers,
which I show with their gas equivalents:
1.2 kW, boostable to 1.8 kW (8,600 BTU/hr boostable to 13,000 BUT/hr)
1.7 kW, boostable to 2.5 kW (12,200 BTU/hr boostable to 18,000 BUT/hr)
1.7 kW, boostable to 3.3 kW (12,200 BTU/hr boostable to 23,700 BUT/hr)
2.2 kW, boostable to 2.5 kW (15,800 BTU/hr boostable to 18,000 BUT/hr)
("Boostable" induction elements can be temporarily--typically for about
10 minutes--raised to a higher output level, which they achieve by
"stealing" some power, in proportion, from the other elements; that is
useful for, say, bringing a big pot of water to the boil.)
_Even without any boosts_, that is equivalent to a gas cooker with
burner powers ranging from the ordinary to the super-powered. How many
homes need more than what this fellow has? And he is among the
cheapest, widely available in the U.K. at under 500 pounds, including
VAT. (And is a trusted brand name that I will not repeat so as to seem
to be plugging any one company.)
